Japanese Horror Focus for 3 NYC Talks
Literary magazine MONKEY to have three discussions in NYC this weekend.
MONKEY Vol. 6 Horror
Friday, May 15, 2026 from 5:30 p.m. until 7:00 p.m.
Kinokuniya New York – 1073 Avenue of the Americas (between 40th and 41st Streets)
Admission: Free
Head to Kinokuniya New York at 5:30 p.m. Friday forMONKEY Vol. 6 Horror, an evening exploring the strange, uncanny, and unforgettable worlds of contemporary Japanese horror literature!
This literary discussion features authors Hideo Furukawa and Tomoka Shibasaki, translators Ted Goossen and Kendall Heitzman, MONKEY contributing editor Roland Kelts, and MONKEY founder Motoyuki Shibata. The panel will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.
Participants
Hideo Furukawa is one of Japan’s most innovative writers. He is the author of Slow Boat; Belka, Why Don't You Bark?; and The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters, which inspired the Golden Globe–nominated film Inu-Oh. The English translation will be published under the MONKEY imprint in 2027.
Tomoka Shibasaki is a novelist and short story writer. Her work includes the novel Spring Garden and the groundbreaking collection A Hundred Years and a Day, translated by Polly Barton (MONKEY/Stone Bridge Press, 2025).
Ted Goossen is a literary translator and professor emeritus at York University in Toronto. He is a founding editor of MONKEY and has translated works by Haruki Murakami, Naoya Shiga, and Hiromi Kawakami, including Dragon Palace (MONKEY/Stone Bridge Press, 2023).
Kendall Heitzman is an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Iowa. He has translated works by Kaori Fujino and Hideo Furukawa, among others. His translation of The Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters is forthcoming.
Roland Nozomu Kelts is a contributing editor to MONKEY New Writing from Japan. An award-winning journalist and the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and The Art of Blade Runner: Black Lotus, he writes for publications in the US, Japan, and Europe, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times,among others, and has contributed to several book-length collections. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is currently filming a documentary about manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka.
Motoyuki Shibata translates American literature and runs the Japanese literary journal MONKEY and its offspring, MONKEY New Writing from Japan. He has translated Paul Auster, Rebecca Brown, Stuart Dybek, Brian Evenson, Laird Hunt, Kelly Link, and Steven Millhauser, among many others.
At Japan Society
In addition to Friday’s talk at Kinokuniya, Japan Society is hosting Hideo Furukawa and Tomoka Shibasaki for a pair of events on Sunday, May 17. The acclaimed, award-winning novelists will spend the afternoon discussing Japanese horror and adapting books to the screen. Roland Kelts will moderate both events.
From Page to Screen – The Art and Anxiety of Adaptation
Sunday, May 17 at 1:00 p.m.
Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
Admission: $28 General | $22 Japan Society members
Hideo Furukawa and Tomoka Shibasaki are two of Japan’s most highly acclaimed authors, and their books have been adapted into successful films shown worldwide. Shibasaki’s Asleep or Awake was turned into the live-action film Asako I & II by Oscar-winning director Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car). Furukawa’s Tale of the Heike: The Inu-Oh Chapters was adapted into the epic animated feature Inu-Oh by Masaaki Yuasa (Devilman Crybaby). In conversation with Japanamerica author Roland Kelts, Furukawa and Shibasaki will address the sometimes-jarring experience of having their original words transformed into immutable images, when works of the imagination leap from one medium to another. Were the adaptations consistent with their imagination and visions, or wildly divergent?
What’s Japanese in Japanese Horror – With Authors Hideo Furukawa and Tomoka Shibasaki
Sunday, May 17 at 3:30 p.m.
Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
Admission: $28 General | $22 Japan Society members
From the oni demons, yurei ghosts, and yokai spirits of folklore, to pop culture sensations like Exit 8 and The Ring, horror runs through the veins of Japanese culture. Often distinctly psychological and provocative, Japanese horror is beloved by those who like their scares with a sharp edge of sophistication. The latest issue of the acclaimed literary magazine MONKEY New Writing from Japan celebrates Japanese psychological horror. Japan Society welcomes an all-star panel of authors, editors, and translators to discuss the worldwide appeal of Japanese horror and what traditional and modern cultural influences make it unique. Some of the most unsettling stories in this issue will be performed by the authors and translators in bilingual readings.
Save 10% by purchasing tickets to both MONKEY events. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit Japan Society’s website.
About MONKEY
MONKEY New Writing from Japan is an annual anthology that showcases the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Vol. 6 celebrates HORROR, from demons and ghosts to the myriad existential and environmental fears that come with living in our troubled times. MONKEY offers short fiction and poetry by writers such as Haruki Murakami, Yoko Ogawa, and Hiromi Kawakami; graphic stories by Satoshi Kitamura; new translations of modern classics; and contributions from authors outside Japan.
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Incarceration & Resettlement Told Through Tanka
Join Japan Society for a special book talk and signing of By the Shore of Lake Michigan, a newly translated tanka poetry collection by Japanese American WWII incarcerees Tomiko and Ryokuyō Matsumoto. Discover firsthand Issei perspectives on displacement, resilience, and postwar life. Free tickets with promo code TANKAFRIEND.
By the Shore of Lake Michigan: Recovering WWII Prison Camp & Resettlement Stories through Poetry
Monday, April 7 at 7:00 p.m.
Japan Society – 333 E. 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues)
Admission: $15 | $12 Seniors & Students | Free for Japan Society members
Japan Society presents a book talk and signing in honor of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, featuring By the Shore of Lake Michigan, a newly translated collection of tanka poetry by Tomiko and Ryokuyō Matsumoto. As first-generation Japanese Americans, the Matsumotos were among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans incarcerated in U.S. wartime prison camps.
Our friends at Japan Society are offering complimentary tickets to JapanCultureNYC readers! Go to Japan Society’s website to select the number of tickets you’d like and use promo code TANKAFRIEND at checkout.
About the Book
The Matsumotos’ poetry, written in tanka—the oldest form of Japanese poetry—captures their experiences of displacement, resilience, and rebuilding life after the war. Published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, By the Shore of Lake Michigan spans 17 years, tracing the Matsumotos’ forced relocation from Los Angeles to Wyoming’s Heart Mountain prison camp in 1942 and their postwar resettlement in Chicago. While many accounts of wartime incarceration have come from second- and third-generation Japanese Americans through fiction, theater, and film, Japanese-language writings from the Issei generation remain largely untranslated. This collection is a rare, firsthand poetic chronicle of a pivotal moment in history, nearly 15 years in the making.
Originally in Japanese, these poems are now available to English-language readers for the first time, thanks to the efforts of editor Nancy Matsumoto, the poets’ granddaughter, along with translators Mariko Aratani and Kyoko Miyabe.
Event Highlights
The evening includes a discussion with:
Nancy Matsumoto — editor and granddaughter of the poets
Mariko Aratani — translator
Kyoko Miyabe — translator
Eri F. Yasuhara — scholar and panelist
They’ll offer insights into the power of tanka and its role in documenting history.
Book Signing
Books will be available for purchase at the event. Guests are also welcome to bring their own copies for signing following the talk.
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Award-winning Author Yoko Tawada to Appear at Two NYC Events
Acclaimed Berlin-based Japanese author Yoko Tawada will be in New York City for two special in-person events. Catch her on Tuesday, March 25 at Rizzoli Bookstore and/or on Thursday, March 27 at Columbia University School of the Arts. Both events are free!
Acclaimed Berlin-based Japanese author Yoko Tawada is making her way to New York City for two special in-person events next week. Catch her on Tuesday, March 25 at Rizzoli Bookstore and/or on Thursday, March 27 at Columbia University School of the Arts. Best of all, both events are free — a perfect opportunity to experience Tawada's literary brilliance up close!
Yoko Tawada with Monique Truong
Tuesday, March 25 from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.
Rizzoli Bookstore – 1133 Broadway (between W. 25th and W. 26th Streets)
Admission: Free
Co-presented by PEN America and Japan Society, internationally renowned writer Yoko Tawada will be in conversation with novelist, essayist, children’s book author, and librettist Monique Truong at Rizzoli Bookstore. Tawada’s rare New York appearance comes on the heels of the English publication of her novel Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel, translated by Susan Bernofsky, and the second installment in her beloved Scattered trilogy, Suggested in the Stars, translated by Margaret Mitsutani.
The discussion will be followed by a book signing.
PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. To register, please visit Rizzoli Bookstore’s Eventbrite page. This event is mixed seated/standing. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
Every Work Has Several Faces: A Conversation with Yoko Tawada about Writing and Translation
Thursday, March 27 from 7:00 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.
Columbia University: Lenfest Center for the Arts – 615 W. 129th Street at Broadway
Admission: Free
International literary luminary Yoko Tawada will discuss writing and translation with co-moderators Writing Professor Rivka Galchen ‘06 and Susan Bernofsky, Director of Literary Translation at Columbia (LTAC). To register, please visit Lenfest’s website.
Tawada, who was born in Tokyo and lives in Berlin, publishes novels, stories, essays, poems, and plays in both Japanese and German. She has received dozens of literary awards including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, the Goethe Medal, the Kleist Prize, and the National Book Award. Some of her major works available in English include The Emissary and Scattered All Over the Earth, translated from Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani, and Memoirs of a Polar Bear and Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel, translated from German by Susan Bernofsky.
This talk is co-sponsored by The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture, and Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Support JapanCulture•NYC by becoming a member! For $5 a month, you’ll help maintain the high quality of our site while we continue to showcase and promote the activities of our vibrant community. Please click here to begin your membership today!