Areas of Expertise

Nagai's specialties are translation, creative writing—(poetry and fiction), comparative modernism, modern and contemporary Japanese literature, and English literature—(modern, composition, and the writing process).

Teaching Interests

At Temple, Nagai divides her time between teaching creative writing courses and Japanese literature from the pre-modern to modern periods, and directing the writing programs.

Research

Nagai's current research includes translation of Hayashi Fumiko's Hourouki, tentatively titled Songs of the Wandering Years; a novel in progress loosely based on Puccini's opera, Madam Butterfly; and a collection of prose-poems which explores nationality, death, patriotism, globalization, languages, and migration.

Representative Publications and Honors

Mariko Nagai's creative work in poetry and fiction, and translation of Japanese literature, have appeared in literary journals such as Asian Pacific American Journal, the Gettysburg Review, New Letters, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review and other journals, and have received the prestigious Pushcart Prize both in poetry (1998) and fiction (2001). A graduate of the New York University Master's Program in Creative Writing (Poetry), where she was the Erich Maria Remarque Fellow, she has received numerous fellowships and awards for her writing from art foundations around the world, including the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for the Arts, Hawthornden Fellowship at the Hawthornden International Writers Retreat, the Fondation Rowalt-Ledig fellowship at the Chateau de Lavigny, amongst others. A collection of poems, Histories of Bodies, the winner of the 2005 James Saltman Poetry Award, was published in March 2007.

Education

M.A. in creative writing (poetry), New York University
B.A. with distinction in English and American literature, Boston University

E-mail

nagai@tuj.ac.jp

Office Hours

Available here.