Sakura: Kanako Nishi and Allison Markin Powell

Kanako Nishi is a Japanese writer and artist. She is the author of the novels Sakura, which was a major bestseller in Japan; Tsutenkaku (Osaka Tower), which won the Sakunosuke Oda Prize; Fukuwarai (Lucky Laugh), which received the first Hayao Kawai Prize; and Saraba!, which won the prestigious Naoki prize in 2015. She was named Vogue Japan’s Woman of the Year in 2015 and among Granta’s Best of Young Japanese Novelists 2016. Several of her books have been adapted for film. Born in Tehran in 1977, Nishi grew up in Cairo and Osaka and lives in Tokyo.

Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She received the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations and co-translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Shiori Ito, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Kaoru Takamura.

Jay Boss Rubin is a writer and literary translator from Swahili into English. His book-length translations include Rosa Mistika by Euphrase Kezilahabi (Yale University Press) and The Witness of Nina Mvungi and Other Stories by Esther Karin Mngodo (Hanging Loose Press). He is now at work on the award-winning spy novel New Virus by Halfani Sudy (forthcoming from University of Georgia Press). He is a proud graduate of the Queens College MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, and he currently serves as Managing Editor of Portland Tennis Courterly.

Gabriella Page-Fort is a songwriter, poet, translator, and editor based in Seattle and Guemes Island, Washington. She is executive editor at HarperOne, bookbuyer at Seattle’s Hex Enduction Records & Books, and publisher of the Hex Enduction Quarterly zine.