About
Dreux Richard is a nonfiction writer from Washington, DC. For six years, he covered Japan’s African communities for The Japan Times, where he also led a major investigation of the “world’s safest” nuclear plant, published as one of the longest print articles in the newspaper’s 125-year history. His work has appeared in CounterPunch, on Public Radio International’s 'The World,' and in The New York Times, among others. His doctoral research, funded by the University of Otago in New Zealand and hosted by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, focused on smuggling and political patronage in the Niger Delta. A former editor of Kyoto Journal, he is currently working on the first English translation of Argentina’s leading public intellectual, Juan José Sebreli.
Featured Work
Every Human Intention: Japan in the New Century (Pantheon Books)
A stunning blend of investigative journalism, authoritative science writing, and embedded ethnography.
Every Human Intention takes us beyond political debates and news analysis, into the infinite complexity of historically significant events as they unfold. Admitted to the innermost corridors of Japan’s bureaucracy, Richard witnesses the near-collapse of the nation’s nuclear regulator and meticulously documents the way this upheaval is concealed from the public. Through his decade-long relationship with Japan’s Nigerian community, he pursues the elaborate cover-up at the heart of Japan’s immigration system. On the nation’s northern border, he follows the region’s youngest census worker through a landscape of abandoned homes and vanishing lives. In Richard’s poised narration, there are no simple answers or elegant conclusions—only the unsettling, lyrical beauty of the intimate moments and buried secrets that form Japan’s national drama.
