2025 May 1 (Thu) 4:30 pm - 6:30 pm | (In-Person) | [NEW DATE] | Tsai Auditorium (S010), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St.

An Afternoon with Novelist Aoko Matsuda: On Maintaining a Feminist Writing Practice across Languages

Speaker: AOKO MATSUDA, Writer and Translator

Discussant: POLLY BARTON, Writer and Translator

Discussant: HITOMI YOSHIO, Professor of Global Japanese Literary and Cultural Studies, Waseda University

Moderator: TOMIKO YODA, Takashima Professor of Japanese Humanities, Harvard University

Book signing with Aoko Matsuda from 6:00-6:30pm. Copies of Where the Wild Ladies Are will be made available for purchase.

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Aoko Matsuda represents a significant, award-winning voice in contemporary Japanese literature, distinguished by her incisive social commentary and innovative narrative techniques that interrogate gender politics and cultural conventions in Japanese society.

In 2013, Matsuda published her first collection of short stories titled Stackable (『スタッキング可能』), which was nominated for both the Mishima Yukio Prize and the Noma Literary New Face Prize. In 2021, the English translation of her short story collection Where the Wild Ladies Are (『おばちゃんたちのいるところ』, 2020, Soft Skull Press, tr. Polly Barton) received the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection from the World Fantasy Convention, as well as the Firecracker Award in fiction from the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. This collection was also named by TIME Magazine and The New Yorker as a “best book of the year.” The English translation of her second short story collection, The Woman Dies (『女が死ぬ』, tr. Polly Barton), is forthcoming from Europa Editions in September 2025. The collection includes the titular story previously nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Matsuda’s work has been translated into multiple languages, and many essays and short stories have been featured in English-language publications including Granta, MONKEY, and The Southern Review.

Beyond her accomplishments as an author, Matsuda has gained international recognition as a literary translator. She has skillfully rendered works by acclaimed writers such as Karen Russell, Amelia Gray, and Carmen Maria Machado into Japanese. Through her frequent contributions to Japanese media outlets, she serves as a compelling public intellectual who illuminates structural inequalities and cultural contradictions in contemporary Japan from a feminist perspective.

Awards and Recognitions

2013 Stackable Mishima Yukio Prize Nominated

2013 Stackable Noma Literary New Face Prize Nominated

2019 The Woman Dies Shirley Jackson Award Shortlisted

2021 Where the Wild Ladies Are LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize Nominated

2021 Where the Wild Ladies Are Stabby Award Nominated

2021 Where the Wild Ladies Are Firecracker Award Awarded

2021 Where the Wild Ladies Are World Fantasy Award Awarded

Reischauer Institute Japan Forum co-sponsored by Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University