Allison Markin Powell

Allison Markin Powell is a translator of Japanese. Her translation of Hiromi Kawakami’s The Briefcase was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and the UK edition (Strange Weather in Tokyo, Portobello) was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi. In addition to translating, she works as an editor and publishing consultant and currently serves as co-chair of PEN America’s Translation Committee. She maintains the database of Japanese Literature in English.

In the Grass

Fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell June 3, 2019

Those third and fourth nights, I cried and wailed. On the morning of the fifth day, my eyes were so swollen my father took one look at me and said, “Shiori, your face—it looks like the goldfish put a curse on you.”