is a Japanese poet and prolific translator who writes frequently for ''

The Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

''. He has been called (by

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of ...

) "perhaps the finest translator of contemporary Japanese poetry into American English".Nicholas J. Teele
"The Translator's Voice: an Interview with Hiroaki Sato".
in ''Translation Review'', volume 10, University of Texas at Dallas, 1982.

Life

The son of a police officer, he was born in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

in 1942. The family fled back to Japan at the end of WWII and encountered a number of hardships, including living in a stable.Hiroaki Sato. "Behind the failure of the Japanese economy." ''Japan Times'', May 28, 2008. He was educated at

Doshisha University , mottoeng = Truth shall make you free , tagline = , established = Founded 1875,Chartered 1920 , vision = , type = Private , affiliation = , calendar = , endowment = €1 ...

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

,Biography
at the website of the American Haiku Archives. and moved to the United States in 1968."A Life in Verse: An Interview with Hiroaki Sato on Poetry, Translation, and Singing for Supper in Two Languages,"
by Jeffrey Angles. From ''Full Tilt: a journal of East Asian poetry, translation, and the arts,'' issue 2, Summer 2007. His first job was at the New York branch of the

Japan External Trade Organization is an Independent Administrative Institution established by Japan Export Trade Research Organization as a nonprofit corporation in Osaka in February 1952, reorganized under the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1958 (later the ...

(JETRO), from April 1969;Robert Wilson
"Interview with Hiroaki Sato."
''Simply Haiku: An E-Journal of Haiku and Related Forms.'' November–December 2004, vol. 2, no. 6. meanwhile he was translating art books and catalogs anonymously for

Weatherhill Shambhala Publications is an independent publishing company based in Boulder, Colorado. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Man ...

. The first work to appear under his own name was a small collection of poems by Princess Shikishi. He attracted attention in the Japanese press with the anthology ''Ten Japanese Poets'' (1973)James A. O'Brien. "''Ten Japanese Poets,'' by Hiroaki Sato." ''Monumenta Nipponica,'' Vol. 30, No. 4 (Winter, 1975), pp. 460–462 and his translations were soon published by the ''

Chicago Review ''Chicago Review'' is a literary magazine founded in 1946 and published quarterly in the Humanities Division at the University of Chicago. The magazine features contemporary poetry, fiction, and criticism, often publishing works in translation and ...

''. Most of Sato's translations are from Japanese into English, but he has also translated verse by

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

into Japanese. He has also provided translations of primary sources on the subject of the

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

tradition in feudal Japan. In 2008, he translated Inose Naoki's biography of

Yukio Mishima , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, Nationalism, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was ...

."Japanese scholar to give two public lectures."
''In the Loop: UMass Amherst weekly newsletter.'' November 30, 2008. Sato was president of the

Haiku Society of America The Haiku Society of America is a non-profit organization composed of haiku poets, editors, critics, publishers and enthusiasts that promotes the composition and appreciation of haiku in English. Founded in 1968, it is the largest society dedicat ...

from 1979 to 1981, and honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives in 2006-7. He was a professor of Japanese literature at

St. Andrews Presbyterian College St. Andrews University is a private Presbyterian liberal arts college in Laurinburg, North Carolina. The university was established in 1958 as a result of a merger of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs and Presbyterian Junior College; it wa ...

in North Carolina from 1985 to 1991, and then director of research and planning at JETRO New York. Since 1998 he has been an adjunct at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

. He lives in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In 1982, Sato received the

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been pr ...

Selected works

* Shikishi. ''Poems of Princess Shikishi.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Bluefish, 1973 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Ten Japanese Poets.'' Hanover, New Hampshire: Granite, 1973. . * Minoru, Yoshika. ''Lilac Garden.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Chicago Review, 1975 * Takahashi, Mutsuo. ''Poems of a Penisist.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Chicago Review, 1975 * Miyazawa, Kenji. ''Spring and Asura.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Chicago Review, 1975 * Takahashi, Mutsuo. ''Winter Haiku: 25 Haiku by Mutsuo Takahashi.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Manchester, NH: First Haiku Press, 1980 * Takamura, Kōtarō. ''Chieko and Other Poems of Takamura Kōtarō.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. University of Hawaii, 1980 * ''From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry.'' Edited and translated by Hiroaki Sato and

Burton Watson Burton Dewitt Watson (June 13, 1925April 1, 2017) was an American sinologist, translator, and writer known for his English translations of Chinese and Japanese literature.Stirling 2006, pg. 92 Watson's translations received many awards, includi ...

. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1981. , . . Winner of the American PEN translation prize in 1983 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''One Hundred Frogs: From

Renga ''Renga'' (, ''linked verse'') is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry in which alternating stanzas, or ''ku (''句), of 5-7-5 and 7-7 mora (sound units, not to be confused with syllables) per line are linked in succession by multiple poets. ...

Haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a ''kireji'', or "cutting word", 17 '' on'' (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a ''kigo'', or se ...

to English.'' New York, NY: Weatherhill, 1983.. * Yagyu, Munenori. ''Sword and the Mind.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1986 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Haiku in English: A Poetic Form Expands.'' Tokyo, Japan: Simul Press, 1987. . * Sato, Hiroaki. ''That First Time: Six Renga on Love, and Other Poems.'' Laurinburg, NC: St. Andrews Press, 1988. * Miyazawa, Kenji. ''Future of Ice: Poems and Stories of a Japanese Buddhist.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989 *

Ashbery, John John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

. 波ひとつ ''(Nami hitotsu).'' Translation into Japanese by Hiroaki Sato, of ''A Wave''. 書肆山田, 1991 * Takahashi, Mutsuo. ''Sleeping Sinning Falling.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. City Lights Books, 1992 * Takamura, Kotaro. ''A Brief History of Imbecility: Poetry and Prose of Takamura Kotaro.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. University of Hawaii, 1992 * Ozaki, Hosai. ''Right under the big sky, I don't wear a hat: the haiku and prose of Hosai Ozaki.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1993 * Shikishi. ''String of Beads: Complete Poems of Princess Shikishi.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. University of Hawaii Press, 1993 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''One Hundred Frogs.'' New York, NY: Weatherhill, 1995. . . (Collects one hundred different translations of the same poem) * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Legends of the Samurai.'' Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1995. . * Matsuo, Basho. ''Basho's Narrow road: spring & autumn passages.'' Translated from the Japanese, with annotations by Hiroaki Sato. Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press, 1996 * Saikō, Ema. ''Breeze through Bamboo: Selected Kanshi of Ema Saiko.'' Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. Columbia University Press, 1997. (Winner of the 1999 Japan‐United States Friendship Commission Japanese Literary Translation Prize) * Mishima, Yukio. ''Silk and Insight.'' Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998 * Hagiwara, Sakutaro. ''Howling at the Moon and Blue.'' Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. Green Integer, 2001 * Taneda, Santoka. ''Grass and Tree Cairn.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2002 * Mishima, Yukio. ''My Friend Hitler: and Other Plays.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. Columbia University Press, 2002 * Yagyu, Munenori. ''The Sword and the Mind: The Classic Japanese Treatise on Swordsmanship and Tactics.'' Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. Fall River Press, 2004. * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Erotic Haiku.'' Yohan Shuppan, 2005 * Miyazawa, Kenji. ''Miyazawa Kenji: Selections.'' Translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato. University of California, 2007 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology.'' Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. , . * Inose, Naoki with Hiroaki Sato. '' Persona: A Biography of Yukio Mishima.''

Stone Bridge Press Stone Bridge Press, Inc. is a publishing company distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution and founded in 1989. Authors published include Donald Richie and Frederik L. Schodt. Stone Bridge publishes books related to Japan, having publi ...

, 2012 * Sato, Hiroaki. ''Snow in a Silver Bowl: A Quest for the World of Yugen''. Red Moon Press, 2013. *

Sakutarō Hagiwara was a Japanese writer of free verse, active in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He liberated Japanese free verse from the grip of traditional rules, and he is considered the "father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan". He publis ...

. ''Cat Town.'' Translated by Hiroaki Sato. New York Review Books, 2014. * Sato, Hiroaki. ''On Haiku''. New Directions Publishing, 2018.

References

External links

List of columns by Sato
at ''The Japan Times'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Sato, Hiroaki Japanese translators English-language writers from Japan English-language haiku poets 1942 births Living people Doshisha University alumni Japanese literature academics 20th-century Japanese poets

Life

Selected works

See also

References

External links