Arai Takako
Arai Takako was born in 1966 in Kiryū City, Gunma Prefecture to a family engaged in textile manufacturing, a traditional industry in Kiryū. She is a graduate of Keio University’s literature department and currently teaches at Saitama University. In addition to several works of literary criticism and her editorship of the poetry magazine Mi’Te, she has published three books of poetry, including Tamashii Dance (Soul Dance), which was awarded the Oguma Hideo Prize. Arai is known for writing socially engaged poetry. A frequent theme of her work is the lives of working women and the ways that they have been shaped by contemporary trends, especially push toward globalization, the recent economic downturn, and the 2011 earthquake-related crises in northeastern Japan. Translations of her poetry are available in Soul Dance (Mi’Te Press, 2008) and Poems of Hiromi Itō, Toshiko Hirata & Takako Arai (Vagabond Press, 2016), both translated by Jeffrey Angles.
Volume 15 | Issue 2 | Number 5