Takako Lento

Takako Lento’s Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson, a collaborative translation with W.S. Merwin, received the 2013–14 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize. Takako Lento won the same prestigious prize in 2018–19 for her translations of Kaneko Mitsuharu in Pioneers of Modern Japanese Poetry, a bilingual collection of four major poets with introductory and critical essays. Her other books of translated modern Japanese poetry and criticism include World Without Words by Tamura Ryuichi; The Colors of Poetry: Essays in Classic Japanese Verse by Makoto Ōoka (with Thomas V. Lento); Tamura Ryuichi: On the Life and Work of a 20^th Century Master (with Wayne Miller); and Tanikawa Shuntarō: The Art of Being Alone, Poems 1952–2009. Her translations and essays also appear on the Poetry International website. In Japan she publishes literary essays and translations of English prose and poetry under the kanji version of her name (連東孝子). These include Gemini by Nikki Giovanni and A Dialogue by James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni. Lento earned her MFA in poetry and translation from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as one of the first participants in the Iowa International Writing Program. She has taught at universities in the US and Japan.