Judging
Committee
Contemporary Literature Category／English
©Garry Loughlin
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Polly Barton
Translator of Japanese literature - Polly Barton is a Japanese-English translator based in the UK. She was the grand prize winner of the first JLPP International Translation Competition in 2012. Her full-length translations include So We Look to the Sky by Misumi Kubo, Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki, and There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. Her translation of Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story Collection, and her translation of Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai was awarded a 2023-2024 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize. Fifty Sounds, her nonfiction book about learning Japanese, was released by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021.
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Michael Emmerich
Translator of Japanese literature, Professor of Japanese Literature, Dept. of Asian Languages & Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles - Born in 1975. Earned Ph.D. from Columbia University. His research interests range from classical literature, "The Tale of Genji", to contemporary literature by Banana Yoshimoto, Hiromi Kawakami, Hideo Furukawa, and others. In 2010, he received the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for his translation of Manazur by Hiromi Kawakami. His publications include The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature, and Tentekomai Bungaku wa Higurete Michitōshi , and his translations, Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, Apprenticeship of Big Toe P by Rieko Matsuura, Belka, Why Don’t You Bark? by Hideo Furukawa, The Hunting Gun by Yasuhi Inoue, and Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata, among others. He served on the selection committee for the 25th Waseda Bungaku Newcomer Award in 2014.
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Stephen Snyder
Translator of Japanese Literature, Dean of Language Schools and Vice President for Academic Affairs; Professor of Japanese Studies, Middlebury College - Born in 1957. Earned Ph.D. from Yale University. He is the author of Fictions of Desire: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafu and co-editor of Oe and Beyond: Fiction in Contemporary Japan. He has translated contemporary Japanese novels by Yoko Ogawa, Kenzaburo Oe, Ryu Murakami, Yu Miri, Kotaro Isaka, to name a few. He also published his translation of Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale by Nagai Kafu and Ashura Girl by Otaro Maijo under JLPP. His translation of Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa was shortlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2020 International Booker Prize.
Classical Literature Category／English
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Janine Beichman
Scholar and translator of Japanese Literature, Professor Emeritus at Daito Bunka University - Earned her doctorate from Columbia University, specializing in Japanese poetry. Her publications include Masaoka Shiki: His Life and Works, Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Rebirth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry, and Drifting Fires: An American Nō. Her translation of Ōoka Makoto's anthology of Japanese poetry and a volume of Ōoka's own poems, Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems received the Japan-U.S. Friendship Foundation's Japanese Literature Translation Award in 2019. Her recent translations include Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku (“Meiku no yuen” by Minoru Ozawa) and This Overflowing Light: Rin Ishigaki Selected Poems.
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Peter MacMillan
Translator of Japanese literature, poet -
Peter MacMillan is a prize-winning translator, scholar, poet, and artist. He was born and grew up in a part of the Irish countryside surrounded by more horses than people. He graduated first in his class from the National University of Ireland, University College Dublin, and then went on to earn an M.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in English literature. He spent two years as a Visiting Fellow at Princeton, Columbia, and Oxford Universities.
A citizen of both Ireland and Britain, he has lived in Japan for over twenty years and strives to be a bridge between Japan and the world. His artist name is Seisai.
In addition to creating prints, Dr. MacMillan is also a poet and translator. His translation, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (Hyakunin Isshu), was published in 2008, winning prizes in both Japan and the United States. He recently completed an English translation of The Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari), which was published by Penguin in 2016. He has also published a collection of poetry entitled Admiring Fields.
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Moriyama Megumi
Poet, translator of Japanese literature - Born in Tokyo, Moriyama Megumi is a poet, English haiku poet, critic, and translator. She is the author of four full-length books of poetry, including Tangible Dreams (Yume no tezawari, 2005) and Green Zone (Midori no ryobun), which were composed for choir pieces, performed and published. Moriyama had been selected as a New Poet by Gendaishi-techo, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She has recently co-translated the full text of Arthur Waley's The Tale of Genji and has won the 2020 Donald Keene Special Award. Her latest work is the translation of Virginia Woolf's The Waves.