Ian MacDonald received a PhD in Japanese literature form Stanford University, where he minored in Japanese art history. He spent five years living in Japan and has worked as a freelance translator for ten years. MacDonald has translated stories by Yukio Mishima, Yumiko Kurahashi, and Kyoka Izumi, among others, and was awarded first prize in the Shizuoka International Translation Competition in 1997.

He has translated The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi, by Kido Okamoto, The Budding Tree: Six Stories of Love in Edo, by Aiko Kitahara, and The Case of the Sharaku Murders, by Katsuhiko Takahashi for JLPP.