Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan Vol.7 – Book Launch!

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September 23rd, 2017 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm EDT

Cost: Free
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To celebrate the launch of Monkey Business Volume 7, the Monkey Business team will gather in the Japan Foundation, Toronto Event Hall with four special guest authors. The event is a cross-cultural discussion between the Canadian and Japanese authors:

 

Satoshi Kitamura (Tokyo) is an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books and graphica. His books include When Sheep Cannot Sleep, My Hand, and Lily Takes a Walk. He has collaborated with numerous writers and poets, notably in The Young Inferno, a retelling of Dante’s Inferno, with John Agard.

Aoko Matsuda (Tokyo) has published four collections of short stories and two books of essays. Her work in translation has been published in Granta and in Monkey Business. Her chapbook The Girl Who Is Getting Married was published in the UK. She is also the Japanese translator for the American author Karen Russell; she has translated Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and Vampires in the Lemon Grove.

Helen Guri (Montreal) is the author of Match, which was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, as well as poetry chapbooks Here Come the Waterworks and Microphone Lessons for Poets. Her poems and essays have been published in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Based in Montreal, she edits poetry for Book Thug and Brick Books.

Rui Umezawa (Toronto) is a storyteller, essayist and novelist. Born in Tokyo, he grew up in Europe and North America. His novel, The Truth About Death and Dying, called “a dazzling tour-de-force” by Canadian Literature, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize for Best First Book (Canada and the Caribbean). Strange Light Afar: Tales of the Supernatural from Old Japan was named a CBC Best Book of the Year in 2015.

Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen, the editors of Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan, will also be on hand to facilitate the panel discussion and participate in discussion.


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What is Monkey Business?

Since its first issue in 2011, Monkey Business: New Writing from Japan has showcased the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Monkey Business features the short fiction and poetry of writers such as Hideo Furukawa, Mina Ishikawa, Hiromi Ito, Mieko Kawakami, Sachiko Kishimoto, Hiromi Kawakami, Aoko Matsuda, and Yoko Ogawa; interviews and essays by writers such as Haruki Murakami; new translations of the work of earlier writers such as Rampo Edogawa, Kafu Nagai, and Soseki Natsume; and graphic stories by Satoshi Kitamura and the Brother and Sister Nishioka.

Creating a bridge between Japanese and American writers and the audiences that love them, Monkey Business also features work by American, British, and Canadian writers, including Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Charles Simic, Stuart Dybek, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Ben Katchor, Kelly Link, Eric McCormack, Matthew Sharpe, and more! For many of the Monkey Business launch events, writers from Tokyo and writers in the U.S. and Canada have the chance to read each other’s work and then participate in dynamic and often mind-cracking dialogue across cultures. Sometimes a new story develops out of this rich brew: Kevin Brockmeier’s “Continental Drift” was inspired by Mina Ishikawa’s tanka, Satoshi Kitamura’s graphic story “Variation and Theme” was inspired by a poem by Charles Simic.

Monkey Business participates annually in PEN America’s PEN World Voices Festival in New York. Monkey Business has also participated in the International Festival of Authors (IFOA) in Toronto, Tokyo International Literary Festival, and Japan Now in London, UK, among others.

Monkey Business tours across North America with writers from Tokyo. In Asia, Monkey Business has traveled to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Monkey Business is the in-translation offspring of the Tokyo-based magazine MONKEY, founded by Motoyuki Shibata, one of Japan’s most highly regarded men of letters and acclaimed translator of American fiction. Selections for each issue are made by Shibata and Ted Goossen, one of the leading translators of Japanese fiction working today.

Monkey Business is published with the generous support of the Nippon Foundation. The Brooklyn-based literary journal A Public Space is the U.S. partner of Monkey Business.

More on Monkey Business here >


Details

Starts:
September 23rd, 2017 @ 3:00 pm
Ends:
September 23rd, 2017 @ 5:00 pm
Doors Open:
2:30pm
Cost:
Free
Registration:
Required
Event Category:

Organizer

The Japan Foundation, Toronto
Phone:
416-966-1600
Email:
info_jftoronto@jpf.go.jp
Website:
View Organizer Website

Venue

The Japan Foundation, Toronto
2 Bloor St. East, 3rd Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8 Canada
+ Google Map
Phone:
416-966-1600
Website:
View Organizer Website

Registration