Mariko Nagai

Award-winning Author

Recipient of two Pushcart Prizes

Born in Tokyo, and raised in Belgium and the United States, Mariko Nagai was graduated from NYU with a Masters in Creative Writing (poetry), where she was the Erich Maria Remarque Fellow. Recipient of two Pushcart Prizes – one in poetry and one in fiction – Mariko's short stories and poems have appeared in Chattahoochee Review, New Letters, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Southern Review, among others. In addition, Mariko has garnered many prestigious residency fellowships and scholarships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Yaddo, UNESCO, Breadloaf, Hedgebrook Foundation for Women, and La Napoule Art Foundation, to name a few.

Aside from her own creative work, she translates contemporary and modern Japanese literature into English. Currently, she is a Professor of Creative Writing and Japanese Literature and Director of Writing Programs at Temple University Japan Campus.

Mariko's book of poems, HISTORIES OF BODIES (Red Hen Press), was the winner of the 2005 Benjamin Saltman Award. Her collection of short stories, GEORGIC (BkMk Press), won the 2009 Chandra Prize. As to Mariko's MG and YA literature: she's certain to be a star in those categories, as well, starting with her MG Multicultural, DUST OF EDEN (Albert Whitman; spring 2014).