MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 Horror – Your Host of Ghosts!

Join us to celebrate the worldwide launch of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 – Your Host of Ghosts!

From "Rashomon" to "The Ring," no one does psychological horror better than Japan, and horror is the theme of the new issue of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, the annual English-language journal of original Japanese stories, poetry, and art. 

But MONKEY 6 is not only about ghosts, spirits and hauntings. Quite often it takes on something more subtle that feels almost anti-horror in spirit.  

This event's award-winning guest authors Kaori Fujino and Hideo Furukawa, and their lauded translators Laurel Taylor and Kendall Heitzman, will discuss what it means to write and translate in our contemporary world filled with its own omnipresent horrors. Hosted by Japanamerica author and contributing editor Roland Kelts and award-winning translator and founding editor Motoyuki Shibata, this is a unique transcultural literary celebration not to be missed!

This free, hour-long session will include presentation and opportunities for audience Q&A. Pre-registration is required, and you will only be able to enter the Zoom meeting by signing in with the same email address you used to register.

Get your copy of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 6 here.

SPEAKERS

Kaori Fujino is a fiction writer who explores the uncanny beneath everyday life, blending elements from various genres such as horror, fantasy, science fiction, and urban legends. In 2017 she was a resident at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. Her story “You Okay for Time?” was translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori and appeared in Granta in 2017. Her novel Nails and Eyes was translated by Kendall Heitzman (2023). Her stories “Someday with the One, the Perfect Bag” (MONKEY, vol. 3), “Transformers: Pianos” (vol. 4), “To Abuse a Monster” (vol. 5), and “The Key” (vol. 6) are translated by Laurel Taylor.

Hideo Furukawa is one of the most innovative writers in Japan today. His novel Belka, Why Don’t You Bark? was translated by Michael Emmerich; his partly fictional reportage Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima was translated by Doug Slaymaker with Akiko Takenaka; and his short novel Slow Boat was translated by David Boyd. His work appears in every volume of Monkey Business and MONKEY; vol. 1 of Monkey Business features an interview with Haruki Murakami by Hideo Furukawa. Vol. 3 of MONKEY includes “The Little Woods of Fukushima,” an excerpt from his memoir Zero F; vol. 4 includes an excerpt from his epic poem Ten-On; vol. 5 features an excerpt from his novel The Holy Family; and vol. 6 includes an excerpt from The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-oh Chapters, all translated by Kendall Heitzman.

Kendall Heitzman is an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Iowa. He has translated stories by Kotomi Li and Nori Nakagami, among others. Heitzman is the author of Enduring Postwar: Yasuoka Shōtarō and Literary Memory in Japan (Vanderbilt University Press, 2019). His translation of Kaori Fujino’s Nails and Eyes was published by Pushkin Press in 2023 and won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize. His translations of the work of Hideo Furukawa appear in MONKEY, vols. 3–6. His translation of “Touch” by Yūshō Takiguchi is featured in vol. 6.

Laurel Taylor is a translator, poet, and assistant professor of Japanese at the University of Denver, where she researches and teaches contemporary Japanese literature, gender and sexuality, and translation. Her translations include fiction and poetry by Yaeko Batchelor, Minae Mizumura, Aoko Matsuda, and Noriko Mizuta. Her poetry collection Human Construct (Shichigatsudō) was published in 2024. She is the co-translator (with Hitomi Yoshio) of Mieko Kawakami’s forthcoming Sisters in Yellow (Knopf ). Her translations of stories by Kaori Fujino appear in vols. 3–6 of MONKEY, as well as on the MONKEY website under “Translators to watch for.”

Roland Kelts is an award-winning journalist and the author of "Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US" and "The Art of Blade Runner: Black Lotus." He writes for publications in the US, Japan and Europe, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, Nikkei Asia and The Japan Times, among others, and he has contributed essays and short stories to several book-length collections. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and currently teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo.

Motoyuki Shibata translates American literature and runs the literary journal MONKEY, both Japanese and English editions. He has translated Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Stuart Dybek, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Kelly Link, and Steven Millhauser, among others. Recent translations include Eric McCormack’s Cloud and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. He is professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.