(born December 15, 1931 in Tokyo City,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

) is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living

Japanese poet Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in th ...

s, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

. Several of his collections, including his selected works, have been translated into English, and his ''Floating the River in Melancholy'', translated by William I. Eliott and Kazuo Kawamura, won the American Book Award in 1989. Tanikawa has written more than 60 books of poetry in addition to translating Charles Schulz's '' Peanuts'' and the Mother Goose rhymes into Japanese. He was nominated for the 2008

Hans Christian Andersen Award The Hans Christian Andersen Awards are two literary awards given by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), recognising one living author and one living illustrator for their "lasting contribution to children's literature". Th ...

for his contributions to children's literature. He also helped translate ''Swimmy'' by Leo Lionni into Japanese. Among his contributions to less conventional art genres is his open video correspondence with Shūji Terayama (''Video Letter'', 1983). Since the 1970s Tanikawa also provided short, onomatopoeic verses for picture books he published in collaboration with visual artist Sadamasa Motonaga, whom he had befriended during his residency in New York in 1966, offered by the Japan Society. He has collaborated several times with the lyricist Chris Mosdell, including creating a deck of cards created in the '' omikuji'' fortune-telling tradition of Shinto shrines, titled The Oracles of Distraction. Tanikawa also co-wrote Kon Ichikawa's '' Tokyo Olympiad'' and wrote the lyrics to the theme song of '' Howl's Moving Castle (film)''. Together with Jerome Rothenberg and Hiromi Itō, he has participated in

collaborative Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

renshi poetry, pioneered by Makoto Ōoka.Tanikawa, Shuntarō, Hiromi Itō, Wakako Kaku,

Yasuhiro Yotsumoto Yasuhiro is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Yasuhiro can be written using many different combinations of kanji characters. Here are some examples: *康弘, "healthy, vast" *康広, "healthy, wide" *康寛, "healthy, generosity" ...

, Jerome Rothenberg. ''Connecting through the Voice'', translated by Jeffrey Angles, in ''Journal of Renga & Renku'', issue 2, 2012. p. 169 The philosopher Tetsuzō Tanikawa was his father. The author-illustrator

Yōko Sano was a Japanese writer and illustrator of children's books. She is most well known for her 1977 book ''The Cat that Lived a Million Times''. For her literary contributions, Sano was awarded the Medals of Honor (Japan)#Purple ribbon, Medal of Hon ...

was his third wife, and illustrated a volume of his poems: ''Onna Ni'', translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura (Shueisha, 2012). Some of his collections available in translation: * Two billion light-years of solitude * 62 Sonnets and definitions * On Love * To You * 21 * With silence my companion * Crestfallen * At midnight in the kitchen … * The day the birds disappeared from the sky * Definitions * Coca-Cola Lessons * A letter * Floating down the river in melancholy * Songs of nonsense * Naked * On giving people poems * The naif * Listening to Mozart * To a woman * Rather than pure white * Minimal * Mickey Mouse by night * A Chagall and a leaf * Me * Kokoro * Ordinary People

References

External links

New York Times discusses Tanikawa's Selected Works

Shuntaro Tanikawa
at J'Lit Books from Japan 1931 births Living people 20th-century Japanese poets American Book Award winners {{japan-poet-stub