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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Susan McCormac 3/19/25 Susan McCormac 3/19/25

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.

Incarceration & Resettlement Told Through Tanka