Mariko Nagai

Mariko Nagai is a Japanese-born poet and writer who writes in English. Although she was born in Japan, she grew up in Belgium, Japan, California, and Tennessee due to her father's job transfers. She received an undergraduate degree from Boston University, and later a graduate degree from New York University.

She is a Professor of creative writing and Japanese literature, and director of research at Temple University, Japan Campus in Tokyo.

Books Imaginary Death, punctum books, 2025 Body of Empire, Tarpauline Sky Press, 2022 Under the Broken Sky, Henry Holt & Co., 2019 Irradiated Cities, Les Figues Press, 2017 Dust of Eden, Albert Whitman & Co, 2014 Instructions for the Living, Word Temple Press, 2012 Georgic: Stories, BkMk Press / University of Missouri Kansas City, 2010 History of Bodies: Poems, Red Hen Press, 2007

Awards Erich Maria Remarque Fellowship from New York University Fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center and Akademie Schloss Solitude UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for the Arts Finalist in the 2010 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize Contest for Weight of the Land Pushcart Prize for her poetry and fiction Benjamin Saltman Prize from Red Hen Press for Histories of Bodies G.S. Sharat Chandra Fiction Prize (2009) from BkMk Press for Georgic: Stories