Posts featuring Hiromitsu Koiso

Desire is No Light Thing: An Interview with Hiromitsu Koiso on Translating Anne Carson and Teju Cole into Japanese

February 5, 2026  |  in Interviews  |  by Alton Melvar M Dapanas and Hiromitsu Koiso

Rather than being shaped by any single figure, I’m more interested in how one’s present moment can be placed in relation to a much longer history.

Hiromitsu Koiso’s path to becoming one of Japan’s most ruminative literary translators was anything but linear. It began, as he recounts, in the second-hand bookshops of western Tokyo, poring over paperbacks and comparing translations by seasoned Japanese translators, a sort of discipleship that would later lead him on a peripatetic route to the MA in Literary Translation and MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) programmes of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom. His body of work reveals a translator who is attuned to works of hybridity and gravitas, from the Sebaldian solivagant of Teju Cole’s Open City to the mythopoetic vestiges of Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red. This extends to the works of Ocean Vuong, Isabella Hammad, Grayson Perry, Noor Hindi, and Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as more recent translation projects like Carson’s Wrong Norma (published on 10 January by honkbooks’ thoasa) and Bryan Washington’s Memorial (forthcoming in Spring 2026). He has also co-translated Japanese poets Kamiyu Ogyu, Naha Kanie, and Ayaka Satō into English.

When asked about influence, Koiso speaks less of particular poetic lineages and more of situating himself within and against literary history, and of navigating the orientalising gaze directed at Asian writers: a “gaze [that] shapes both how we are read and how we respond, creatively and intellectually.”

In this interview, I spoke with Koiso (who is in Tokyo) about his unorthodox career trajectory, the immersive craft behind recasting specific genres and texts, and the poetic reflection underpinning his work as a poet and translator who seeks to meditate on “how one’s present moment can be placed in relation to a much longer history.”

Alton Melvar M Dapanas (AMMD): Koiso-san, I want to begin with how you started as a translator. As a university student, you pored over Paul Auster and J.D. Salinger paperbacks at the second-hand bookstore Nishi Shoten in Kunitachi. By comparing your early attempts with the translations of seasoned practitioners like Motoyuki Shibata and Takashi Nozaki, you developed an appreciation for the craft. Yet you didn’t pursue translation right after university. So, what were the key moments that ultimately led you here?

Hiromitsu Koiso (HK): After graduating from university, I wanted to work in literary translation, but I had no idea how to enter the profession. Throughout my twenties, I worked various jobs while studying and trying to find my way into the field. I took temporary positions, worked in offices, saved money, and eventually decided to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

I first learned about UEA’s MA in Literary Translation program and a particular centre for literary translation through the Japanese translations of W. G. Sebald. Discovering that Sebald had taught at UEA and helped establish the translation centre made a deep impression on me. I felt strongly that I wanted to study Literary Translation in the very place where he had lived, taught, and built a community for translators. READ MORE…

Blog Editors’ Highlights: Winter 2024

January 22, 2024  |  in News  |  by Bella Creel and Xiao Yue Shan

Taking a closer look at Asymptote’s milestone issue!

Not sure where to start with our tremendous fiftieth issue? Our blog editors talk their favourites.

In its overarching theme of “Coexistence,” Asymptote’s monumental 50th issue draws together the quiet, the forgotten, and the unseen, allowing us to inhabit worlds that are not our own. From the bright unease of Elena Garro’s “The Week of Colors” (tr. Christine Legros), to the serene, dynamic stanzas of Eva Ribich’s Along the Border (tr. Julian Anderson), to the dedicated love in Almayrah A. Tiburon’s “Keyboard and Breastfeed” (tr. Bernard Capinpin), Asymptote’s Winter 2024 Issue examines the relationships we have with each other, with the world, and with ourselves.

Dark and unflinching, Maria Grazia Calandrone’s Your Little Matter delves into the ambiguous history of the author’s mother Lucia, her parents’ joint suicide in Rome, and all that was left behind. Central to the piece are physical mementos—two old photographs of Lucia, a list of items left in a suitcase, clippings from a newspaper—from which Calandrone pieces together the story of her parents’ lives, revealing aspects of a woman her daughter barely knew. Alongside the photos come memories passed down and memories created, as Calandrone pieces together the life of a young woman who was nearly forgotten. 

Translated by Antonella Lettieri, Your Little Matter is a work of empathy—of putting on a parent’s shoes, of imagining the pain and the love of the life that led to yours. The lives of our parents are distant, disconnected from our own. Even for those who knew their parents, the question of who they were before we existed can be haunting. What did you lose when you had me? What did you gain? It can be a self-centered venture, as relationships with parents often are, and Your Little Matter simultaneously veers away from and embraces this selfishness. Who were you? Why did you have to leave? I want to remember you; I want you to be remembered. Calandrone’s condemnation of the society that killed her parents; the somber moments spent amidst photographs, imagining; the love she holds for someone who can only be known retroactively—these elements draw you into Lucia’s life, her story, unforgettable. READ MORE…