In conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today, we are pleased to present Sawako Nakayasu, an artist working with language, performance, and translation – separately and in various combinations. She has lived mostly in the US and Japan, briefly in France and China, and translates from Japanese. This convergence of cultures, countries, and languages gives Nakayasu a unique perspective on writing and translating across borders. Nakayasu will be joined by Jennifer Lopez, Events and Programs Coordinator at the Japanese Culture Center. This program is part of the Jeanne M. & John W. Rowe program series, a series of conversations with leading contemporary writers about their latest work and their thoughts on themes of identity, home, belonging and the meaning of what it is to be American.
Born in Japan, translator and writer Sawako Nakayasu’s work lives at the intersection cultures, countries and languages. She is co-editor, with Lisa Samuels, of A Transpacific Poetics, a gathering of poetry and poetics that re-maps identity and locale in modes of argumentation, resituated genres, and textual innovations. She is also the author of several poetry collections, including The Ants (2014), Texture Notes (2010), Hurry Home Honey (2009), and So We Have Been Given Time Or (2004), which was selected for the Verse Prize by Ann Lauterbach. Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, & Originals (2011) is a book of both translation and original work. Nakayasu teaches at Brown University.