Strange Weather In Tokyo

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Hiromi Kawakami was born in Tokyo in 1958. Her first book, God (Kamisama) was published in 1994. In 1996, she was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for Tread on a Snake (Hebi o fumu), & in 2001 she won the Tanizaki Prize for her novel Strange Weather in Tokyo (Sensei no kaban) aka The Briefcase, which was an international bestseller. The book was short-listed for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize and the 2014 International Foreign Fiction Prize. Kawakami has contributed to editions of Granta in both the UK & Japan & is one of Japan's most popular contemporary novelists.

Allison Markin Powell has been awarded grants from English PEN & the NEA, & the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakaami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, & Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders, served as cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee & currently represents the committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees, & she maintains the database Japanese Literature in English.