The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize
For the third year in a row, we’re celebrating exceptional translations into English from Japanese in partnership with the Society of Authors!
The winner of the 2025 Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize was Ginny Tapley Takemori for a translation of Mornings With My Cat Mii by Mayumi Inaba (Harvill Secker, Vintage, Penguin Random House).
This year’s judges were Lila Matsumoto, Asa Yoneda and Dr Victoria Young.
Dr Victoria Young said:
“In Mornings With My Cat Mii, the surprise lay in how the translation appeared to mirror the melancholic beauty of the original Japanese so effortlessly, presenting in the guise of a personal memoir a poignant reflection upon the nature of relationships, loss, and care amid the changing landscape of Tokyo’s suburbs since the late 1970s.”
The runner-up was Bryan Karetnyk for a translation of The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Press).
Read more on the Society of Authors website: Japanese – Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize – The Society of Authors
About the prize
Japanese prose is flourishing in Britain, and by supporting this prize we aim to shine a light on the essential (and fascinating) work of translators, and support them in bringing a new, English-speaking audience to writers working in Japanese.
The prize is awarded to a translation into English of a full-length Japanese-language work of literary merit and general interest. The winning translation will make for faultless reading or reading where there is no indication that the original language was not English.