Toshiko Hirata

Toshiko Hirata, one of Japan’s best-known contemporary poets, has published ten volumes of poetry; she also writes novels, plays, and essays. Her collection Shinanoka (Tokyo, Shichōsha, 2004), which translators Eric E. Hyett and Spencer Thurlow call Is It Poetry?, earned Ms. Hirata the Hagiwara Sakutarō Prize for poetry.