India, Sept. 13 -- 1What was the first Japanese book you translated, and what was that like? The first Japanese book I translated was Then Why Ask Me to Come? by Risa Wataya, an author I am delighted to reintroduce to English readers in 2025. She is a literary superstar in Japan. I hope this is the start of many more translated novels to come from Wataya. In translating her hit title, I had wonderful bilingual editors who pored over the text (in both languages) and provided the most insightful advice. I took what they taught me into Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura. It's a novel I've loved for years that I still can't believe I was asked to translate. 2 A lot of the books you have worked to translate deal with the themes of isolation / loneliness. I love this question because I thought about it quite a bit as I was translating Emi Yagi's When the Museum Is Closed and Kumi Kimura's Someone to Watch Over You at around the same time. As I translated, I started to feel as though the protagonists were almost in conversation with each other. They were similar in that they were both a little detached from society, and both had difficulty communicating with others. They couldn't find their place in the world, and lived very much in solitude. Working on the two novels allowed me to think about solitude and different kinds of women in Japanese society. To be able to live inside the heads of these two protagonists carrying heavy burdens, imagining them in conversation with each other, was an enlightening experience. It would all percolate in my mind and turn into the bigger themes of: Okay, what is loneliness in Japanese society? What is it about Japanese society that creates this kind of loneliness? Would it be easier if these women were able to communicate better, if they had less social anxiety, or is that not the case at all? To be able to work on these two novels together deepened the translation experience. 3You are a major advocate of women translating women. Could you encapsulate for us your perspective on this? I couldn't be happier for this current wave of Japanese literature in translation, with more Japanese women writers being read in English. I have read Japanese novels in their original language all my life, though I grew up in Los Angeles, because I wanted to gain a better understanding of what was going on in my half-American, half-Japanese head. The novels helped me to understand the Japanese side of my identity. For me, translating women is a no-brainer. I can think of so many women authors whose works I wish were translated either for the first time, or once more: Risa Wataya, Kanako Nishi is one of my absolute favourites, Akane Chihaya, Rieko Matsuura....