Essays, Excerpts, Talks, and Interviews in English and Other Languages

• "Littérature mondiale et littérature japonaise contemporaine." In Pour une autre littérature mondiale: La traduction franco-japonaise en perspective, edited by Cécile Sakai and Sawada Nao, 51-56. Arles Cedex, France: Editions Picquier, February 4, 2021.

  “A Decent America.” New York Review of Books, November 5, 2020.

• "The Situation II—Tokyo." Essay. 91st Meridian, Spring 2020, vol.10, no.3, April 28, 2020. International Writing Program, University of Iowa.

• "Pandemic Journal: Dispatches from around the world documenting the coronavirus outbreak." New York Review of Books, March 29, 2020.

• “On Translation.” Serving Library Annual (Translation). Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2018/19.

• “Book Excerpt! Minae Mizumura and the Fall of Language in the Age of English.” Columbia University Press Blog, August 28, 2018.

• “Special Guest Talk: A Perfect Team.” Strong Women, Soft Power Symposium #1: Towards a Community of Practice in Japanese Literary Translation. With Juliet Winters Carpenter. Tokyo, November 18, 2017.

In 'Inheritance From Mother' I laundered, sanitized and toned down the kinds of things my mother did and said, for one reason: I wanted my novel to remain within the bounds of what is usually referred to as realism. Simply put, I wanted it to be believable.

—Minae Mizumura, in an interview with Lit Hub. "Quotable." Excerpt. Edited by John Williams. New York Times, June 29, 2017.

• “Novelist Minae Mizumura on Technology’s Impact on Literature and Deciding Which Projects Are Worth Pursuing.” Interview. Writing Routines.

• “Minae Mizumura on Serializing Novels, Aging, and the Eternal Internet: The Author of Inheritance From Mother Talks to Benjamin Moser.” Interview by Benjamin Moser. Literary Hub, June 20, 2017.

• "Living Ghosts." Reading. Inheritance from Mother, chapter 8. In The Tower at the End of the World, Islands and Literature Conference, Tórshavn, Denmark, May 11-13, 2017. Issuu, May 8, 2017.

• “Miracles of Language and Literature in Modern Japan.” 2016-2017 Sōshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Lectures on Japanese Culture. Columbia University Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, April 27, 2017.

• “Structo talks to Minae Mizumura.” Interview by Euan Monaghan. Structo, Issue 16, February, 2017.

• “Who Wants to Marry an Emperor?” Opinion. New York Times, August 20, 2016.

• “To Die in a Country That Barely Knows Itself.” Essay. Arrupe, Magdalena, editor, I Will Take It to the Grave (Me lo llevaré a la sepultura), vol. 1. Departamento de Literatura, Fundación Costantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, July, 2015, p. 7-9. Issuu, July 30, 2015. Issuu, July 7, 2020.

• “The Fall of Language in the Age of English.” Public symposium. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, April 24, 2015.

• “The Fall of Language in the Age of English.” Lecture. International Cultural Studies Speaker Series, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, April 22, 2015.

• “The Makioka Sisters: An Aberrant Masterpiece.” Essay. HuffPost, April 2, 2015, updated June 2, 2015.

• “The Fall of Language in the Age of English.” Essay, Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2015.

• Cliff, Corinna. “An Interview with Minae Mizumura.” Book Slut, March, 2015.

• "Under the Blue Sky of Iowa: Those Who Write in Their Own Language." Excerpt. The Fall of Language in the Age of English, chapter 1. Translated by Mari Yoshihara and Juliet Winters Carpenter. Columbia University Press, Issuu, February 9, 2015.

• “Shishōsetsu from Left to Right.” Excerpt. Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, White Review, on-line edition, London, January 2015.

• "Panglish," October 2. "Made & Remade in Japan," October 2. "Minae Mizumura's True Novel," October 3. "Minae Mizumura's Yomimono," October 4. Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, Ubud, Indonesia, October 2-4, 2014. Issuu, September 9, 2014.

• “Please, Mother, Enough.” Opinion. New York Times, May 9, 2014.

• “Interview.” By Leopoldo Brizuela and Oliverio Cohelo. In La Nacion, Buenos Aires, March 1, 2008. Revised April 11, 2014.

• “A True Novel and Wuthering Heights: the Formation of Modern Japanese Literature.” Lecture. Universität Heidelberg, December 3, 2013.

• "A True Novel and Wuthering Heights: The Formation of Modern Japanes Literature." Lecture. Japanology and the Center for East Asia-Pacific Studies. Universität Trier, December 4, 2013.

• "Doppelt fremd? Auswandern und Einwandern. Übersetzen und Übersetzt-Werden Lesung" (Twice as strange? Emigration and immigration. Translating and being translated).” Reading and discussion. Moderated by Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Literary Colloquium Berlin, Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule, Freie Universität, December 11, 2013.

• “Contending with Meian (Light and Dark): A Public Conversation between John Nathan and Mizumura Minae.” Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan, September 21, 2012.

• “The Japanese Language: An Endangered Heritage.” Interview by Kōno Michikazu, October 3, 2011, nippon.com.

• “Japan: How to Talk to a Tragedy.” Opinion.  Guardian, April 17, 2011.

• “Kokugo (National Language) in the Era of English: from a Writer’s Perspective.” Lecture. Iwasaki Koyata Memorial Hall, International House of Japan, February 25, 2010.

No more Shiseido deluxe. Determined, Sakura bought instead a cheaper version for her once-beautiful, now-demented mother, telling her it was exactly the same. Sakura was only being rational. She even bought two extra ones on sale. How could she have known that her mother would soon die, leaving her with three bottles of cheap night cream? Sakura feels fooled but enjoys the sting of guilt as she now uses it nightly. Too dutiful a daughter to a mother who had mercilessly abandoned her father, the memory of her little lie comforts Sakura like a revenge long overdue.

—Minae Mizumura. “Night Cream.” In La Comunidad Inconfesable, Barcelona and Buenos Aires, June, 2009.

• “El amor trágico en clave japonesa ("Tragic love in a Japanese key).” Interview by Leopoldo Brizuela and Oliverio Cohelo. La Nacion, Buenos Aires, March 1, 2008.

• “The Fate of the Japanese Language in the Age of English.” Keynote Address. Literature and Literary Theory, The 16th Annual Meeting of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies,  Princeton University, November 2, 2007. In The Proceedings of the Association for Japanese Literary Studies, edited by Atsuko Ueda and Richard H. Okada, vol. 9, Summer, 2008.

• “The Fate of the Japanese Language in the Age of English.” Lecture. McClellan Visiting Fellow in Japanese Studies Lecture, Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University, November 5, 2007. 

• “The Fate of the Japanese Language in the Age of English.” Lecture. Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, Columbia University, November 8, 2007.

• “Minae Mizumura: Crossover Artists: Writing in Another Language.” PEN America 7: World Voices. PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, April 4, 2007.

• “Inappropriate Appropriation.” Symposium. PEN World Voices Festival, New York, April 3, 2007.

• “A Note from Japan, Minae Mizumura,” Context no.16. Champaign, IL.: Dalkey Archive Press, 2004.

• “On Translation.” Essay. In 91th Meridian, Winter 2004. International Writing Program, University of Iowa.

• “Why I Write What I Write.” Essay. In 91th Meridian, Winter 2004. International Writing Program, University of Iowa.

• “Authoring Shishōsetsu from left to right.” Essay. In 91th Meridian, Winter 2004. International Writing Program, University of Iowa.

• “Readings/Translations.” Reading. In Translation Matters, East Asian Literatures in Transnational Perspective, Columbia University, March 26, 2004.

• “Writing Horizontally in Shishōsetsu from left to right.” Special Address. Asia 2000: Change and Tradition, Princeton University Alumni Council Regional Conference, Chiba, Japan, November 4, 2000.

• “La littérature moderne japonaise: deux temps” (“Modern Japanese Literature: Dual Temporalities”). Lecture. Le Temps des oeuvres, Memoire et préfiguration. Université Paris 8/Université de Tokyo/Université de Genève, Paris, May 22,1999. In Le Temps des oeuvres, Memoire et préfiguration, edited by Jacques Neefs. Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2001.

• “Writing Zoku meian and Shishōsetsu from left to right.” Lecture. Stanford Humanities Center, Stanford University, February 17, 1998.

• “Authoring Shishōsetsu from left to right.” Lecture. Midwest Association for Japanese Literary Studies. University of Michigan, October 26, 1997. In New Historicism and Japanese Literary Studies, edited by Eiji Sekine, Proceedings of the Midwest Association for Japanese Literary Studies, Vol. 4. The University of Michigan, 1998.

• “Resisting Woman—Reading Sōseki’s Gubijinsō.” Essay. In Studies in Modern Japanese Literature: Essays and Translations in Honor of Edwin McClellan, edited by Dennis Washburn and Alan Tansman. Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1997.

• “Modern Japanese Cultural Characteristics.” Lecture. East Asia and the Globe, University of Michigan, March 14, 1991.

• “Finishing the Unfinished Sōseki.” Lecture. The Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, November 9, 1989.

• “Renunciation.” Essay. In The Lesson of Paul de Man, edited by Peter Brooks, S. Felman, and J. S. Miller. Yale French Studies, no. 69 (1985): 81-97.