Biographies of Panelists, Moderator, and Event Host

Born in the Japanese city of Okayama in 1962. Ogawa graduated from the Department of Literature in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Waseda University. She debuted as a writer in 1988 after winning the Kaien Newcomer Writer’s Prize for The Breaking of the Butterfly. In 1991, Ogawa won the Akutagawa Prize for her novella Pregnancy Diary. In 2004, she won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature and the Japan Booksellers' Award for The Housekeeper and the Professor, and the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature for Brahman's Burial. Ogawa won the Tanizaki Prize in 2006 for Mina's Matchbox. She was awarded the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2007. Ogawa received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for Kotori in 2013. She won the Noma Literary Prize in 2020 for Little Boxes. In 2021, Ogawa received the Kikuchi Kan Prize as well as the Medal with Purple Ribbon. She was awarded the 2023 Japan Art Academy Prize. Ogawa won the Mainichi Art Award in 2026 for Silent Singer. Additionally, Yoko Ogawa’s major works include The Ring Finger, The Memory Police (originally published as Hisoyakana Kessho), Anne Furanku no Kioku, Neko o Daite Zo to Oyogu, and Gekijo to Iuna no Seiza.

Born in Tokyo, 1958. She made her debut in 1994 with God, which won the first Pascal Newcomer Award for Short Stories. Since then she has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including Akutagawa Prize in 1996 for A Snake Stepped On; the Deux Magots Literary Prize and Murasaki Shikibu Literature Prize in 1999 for God; the Ito Sei Literature Prize and Woman Writer Prize in 2000 for Oboreru; the Tanizaki Prize in 2001 for The Briefcase (or Strange Weather in Tokyo); the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2007 for Manazuru; the Yomiuri Literary Award in 2015 for Suisei; the Izumi Kyoka Literary Award in 2016 for Under the Eye of the Big Bird; and Noma Literary Prize in 2023 for Koi wa hakanai, aruiwa, pūru no soko no sutēki. Her other novels include The Ten Loves of Nishino, The Nakano Thrift Shop, Zarazara, Hazuki-san no Koto, Dokokaraittemo toi hanashi, and Kigen no ii inu, to name a few. Manazuru was translated into English, French, German, and Russian under JLPP. Her works, including the well-received Briefcase (or Strange Weather in Tokyo), have been translated and published worldwide, making her one of the most acclaimed authors.

British writer born in 1981. Max Porter is the author of five novels, including the Sunday Times #1 bestseller Shy, the Booker Prize-longlisted Lanny, and the multi-award winning Grief is the Thing with Feathers. His work has been translated into 38 languages. Porter’s BAFTA-nominated screen debut STEVE, was released in October 2025. His new novel Burn and Rave will be published in 2027. He is currently writer in residence in a UK prison and is an Associate Artist at The Southbank Centre. He was previously editorial director at Granta Books where his authors included Han Kang, Eleanor Catton and Rebecca Solnit.

He works broadly in the fields of Japanese literature translation, editing, and the planning of literary exchange events. He co-edits the Japanese Novella Series for Pushkin Press. His publications include Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami (Misuzu Shobo) and Literary People: Those Who Turn Passion into a Career (Kodansha).

Born in Chiba in 1971. Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Tohoku University. In 2000, he won the 5th Shincho Mystery Club Award for his debut novel Audubon's Prayer. His novel The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker won the 25th Yoshikawa Eiji Literary Prize for New Writers, and his short story, The Precision of the Agent of Death, won the 57th Mystery Writers of Japan Award. In 2008, he won the 5th Japan Booksellers' Award and the 21st Yamamoto Shugoro Prize for Remote Control (Japanese title Golden Slumber). In 2014, Isaka won the University Readers' Award for Bullet Train (Japanese title Maria Beetle). In 2017, his novel The Mantis (Japanese title AX) won the Shizuoka Bookstore Award (Novel Category). In 2020, he won the Shibata Renzaburo Award for Reverse Socrates. His numerous titles include Lush Life, A Cheerful Gang Turns the Earth, Gravity's Clowns, 3 Assassins (Japanese title Grasshopper), Desert, The Fool at the End of the World, Modern Times, The Mantis (Japanese title AX), Hotel Lucky Seven (Japanese title 777), and Goodbye Jabberwock. Isaka's books have been translated and published in about 19 countries worldwide. Maria Beetle was adapted into the major motion picture Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt, in 2022. It has also been adapted into films and TV series in China and South Korea.

Liz Foley is the Associate Publishing Director of Harvill, part of Penguin Random House UK. Prior to working at Harvill Liz relaunched the Vintage Classics list. Harvill is an imprint with a long heritage in publishing internationally acclaimed authors such as Haruki Murakami, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Umberto Eco and Henning Mankell. It publishes fiction in a range of genres from crime and thriller to historical, fantasy, literary and horror and aims to celebrate addictive storytelling from around the world. The Japanese writers Harvill is proud to publish include Haruki Murakami, Yoko Ogawa, Kotaro Isaka, Natsuo Kirino and Emi Yagi.

Editor and Film Producer, Co-Founder of CTB Inc. After working at a publishing company, he founded CTB Inc. in 2017. In 2022, he served as an executive producer for the American feature film Bullet Train. He currently acts as an agent and editor for authors including Kotaro Isaka and Shigehiko Hasumi, while also producing Robert Akiyama's "Creators File."

Born in Yokohama and raised in Osaka. After working for three years as an announcer at Okayama Broadcasting, she transitioned to a career as a stage actress, joining the Subaru Theater Company in 1996. Her major stage credits include Marvin's Room, The Lower Depths, and Sarkofag (Subaru Theater Company), The Golden Age (Haisho Theater Company), Kasho no Onna (P Company), Lies (Haiyuzagekijo Produce), and Anna Karenina (ACORN). Her television appearances include the drama The Day a Taiga Drama Was Born, along with voiceover work for the Japanese dub of The Good Wife series. This is her second consecutive year as the moderator for the International Literary Festival Tokyo.

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. Mina’s Matchbox., also by Yoko Ogawa, was selected as one of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 in his English translation.

Born in 1959. Bayard-Sakai obtained a doctorate from the Graduate School of Paris Diderot University in 1989. She is a leading authority on the translation of literary works by authors such as Junichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata, and Kenzaburo Oe. In 2009, Bayard-Sakai received the Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature for the translation of Ira Ishida's Ikebukuro West Gate Park. Major translations include Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Key, Kenzaburo Oe’s A Quiet Life, Toshiyuki Horie’s Yukinuma and Its Environs, Fumiko Enchi’s The Waiting Years, Shohei Ooka’s The Shade of Blossoms, and Takeshi Kaiko’s Romanée-Conti 1935, among many others.

Earned her doctorate from Columbia University, specializing in Japanese literature. 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 poems, Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems received the Japan-U.S. Friendship Foundation's Japanese Literature Translation Award. Her recent translations include Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku (“Meiku no yuen” by Minoru Ozawa) and This Overflowing Light: Rin Ishigaki Selected Poems.

Born in Tokyo in 1982, Yusho Takiguchi debuted in 2011 by winning the Shincho Prize for New Writers for Gakki. In 2015, he received the Noma Literary Prize for New Writers for Ai to Jinsei; in 2016, the Akutagawa Prize for Shinde Inai Mono; in 2022, the Oda Sakunosuke Prize for Suiheisen; in 2023, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for the same work; and that same year, the Kawabata Yasunari Literary Prize for Hantai Hoko Yuki. His other works include Nezo, Jimi Hendricks Experience, Nasu no Kagayaki, Kokasen, Yagate Wasureru Katei no Tochu (Iowa Nikki), Nagai Ichinichi, Ramen Curry, and Sabishisa ni tsuite (co-authored with Ichiko Uemoto).

Yuki Tejima was born in Tokyo and raised in Los Angeles from the age of four. A graduate of University of California, Irvine, Yuki worked for fifteen years in film, television and commercial translation in New York City and Tokyo before shifting to literary translation. Her translation work includes Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon and How to Hold Someone in Your Heart by Mizuki Tsujimura, Someone to Watch Over You by Kumi Kimura, When the Museum is Closed by Emi Yagi, Then Why Ask Me To Come? by Risa Wataya, and Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window The Sequel by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. She was awarded Second Prize in the English category of the 5th JLPP International Translation Competition.