An Afternoon with Japanese Poet Kiwao Nomura and Translator Kyoko Yoshida
The Booksmith | 1644 Haight Street | San Francisco, CA
Two Voices partners with innovative poetry press Omnidawn to present leading Japanese poet, editor, and critic Kiwao Nomura, known for his electrifying performances. One of Japan’s leading experimental poets, Nomura is the recipient of numerous awards and plays a leading role in the Japanese contemporary poetry scene.
Nomura comes all the way from Japan to read alongside translator Kyoko Yoshida (also coming from Japan!), who has co-translated with Forrest Gander a volume of Nomura’s selected poems, Spectacle and Pigsty, just published by Omnidawn.
Kiwao Nomura was born October 20, 1951 in Saitama Prefecture. A leading writer of the post-war generation, he is in the forefront of contemporary poetry. At the same time, he is known to be a prolific critic, translator, and essayist on comparative poetics. His work has been translated into many languages and published in magazines abroad, especially in France and the United States.
Kyoko Yoshida (1969–) is a fiction writer in English, as well as a translator of Japanese contemporary poetry and drama into English and American novels into Japanese. She has two collections of short stories: Disorientalism (Vagabond Press) and Spring Sleepers (Strangers Press). With poet Forrest Gander she translated Kiwao Nomura and Gozo Yoshimasu. She has been the director of Kyoto Writers Residency since 2022. She teaches at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.