Speak, Memory!: Online Launch for MONKEY New Writing from Japan, Vol. 7

Memory is not History; it’s Story–as much reflection as it is reinvention. Over the centuries, Japan' s own story has been driven by relentless reinventions. Join us for an evening of transformative storytelling from the new issue of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 7 – Memory, with authors Hiromi Itō and Yūshō Takiguchi, translators Jeffrey Angles and Kendall Heitzman, and editors Roland Kelts and Motoyuki Shibata.

This free, hour-long session will include a presentation and opportunities for audience Q&A. Pre-registration is required.

Pre-order your copy of MONKEY: New Writing from Japan, Vol. 7 here.

SPEAKERS

Hiromi Itō is one of the most important voices in contemporary Japanese poetry. English translations of her poetry collections include Killing Kanoko and Wild Grass on the Riverbank, both translated by Jeffrey Angles. Monkey Business (vols. 5–7) and MONKEY (vols. 1–2) feature excerpts from her novel The Thorn Puller, translated by Jeffrey Angles and published under the Monkey imprint with Stone Bridge Press in 2022. “Wild Boar” appears in MONKEY, vol. 5; “My Father’s Pictures,” an excerpt from the memoir My Father’s Dragon (Watashi no otōsan no ryū, Sayūsha, 2025), appears in vol. 7. In Japan she is currently publishing an ongoing series of essays entitled Shiteki saijiki (My Personal Record of the Seasons) about astronomy, plants, animals, and other elements of the natural world.

Yūshō Takiguchi, one of Japan’s most celebrated young novelists, writes stories about individual and collective memory, often marked by a roaming narrative voice and multiple temporalities. He won the Shinchō Prize for New Writers in 2011, the Noma Literary New Face Prize in 2015, and the Akutagawa Prize in 2016 for the novel Shinde inai mono. In 2018 he was a resident at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. His long novel about Iwo Jima, Suiheisen, was awarded the Oda Sakunosuke Prize in 2022. His story “Touch” is featured in vol. 6 of MONKEY and “A Faint Euphoria” in vol. 7, both translated by Kendall Heitzman.

Jeffrey Angles is a professor of Japanese language and literature at Western Michigan University and an award-winning poet. His translation of Hiromi Itō’s novel The Thorn Puller was published under the Monkey imprint with Stone Bridge Press in 2022. Recent translations include Angel at the Earth’s Extreme: Collected Poems by Chūya Nakahara (Penguin, 2026) and the bestselling Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by sci-fi writer Shigeru Kayama (2023). His translations of work by Hiromi Itō appear frequently in Monkey Business and MONKEY. Other contributions to MONKEY include poems by Mutsuo Takahashi, Haruki Murakami’s “The Zombie,” Ranpo Edogawa’s “The Human Chair,” microfiction by Taruho Inagaki, and selections from Kyūsaku Yumeno’s “Songs of the Curiosity Hunter.”

Kendall Heitzman is an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Iowa. His translation of Kaori Fujino’s Negative Space is forthcoming (Pushkin Press, 2027); Nails and Eyes was published in 2023 and won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize. His translations of stories by Yūshō Takiguchi appear in vols. 6 and 7 of MONKEY, Fujino’s “The Great Outdoors” in vol. 7, and excerpts from the work of Hideo Furukawa in vols. 3–7. His translation of Furukawa’s INU-OH: Dance of the Dog King will be published under the Monkey imprint with Stone Bridge Press in 2027.

Roland Nozomu 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 teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is currently filming a documentary about manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka.

Motoyuki Shibata translates American and British literature and runs the Japanese literary journal MONKEY and its offspring, MONKEY New Writing from Japan. He has translated Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Stuart Dybek, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Kelly Link, and Steven Millhauser, among many others. His recent translations include Paul Auster’s 4321, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. He is currently working on a new translation of Hamlet. He is professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.