About

Brian is a lecturer and translator currently based in Montréal after living in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. After graduate school at University of Chicago and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, he has worked over ten years in the East Asian Studies Department at McGill University and has published academically in the peer-reviewed journals Mechademia, positions: asia critique, and Japan Forum on Japanese literature and contemporary society.

As a translator, Brian has worked in a variety of fields for over 20 years. He specializes in literary translation, many times working closely with living authors. His published translations include the collection We, the Children of Cats by Tomoyuki Hoshino (PM Press), which was longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated Book Award, the short story “See” by Erika Kobayashi, which was the first runner-up in Asymptote’s Close Approximations Translated Fiction Contest in 2017, and The Shining Sea by Koji Suzuki, bestselling author of the Ring novels.

His translation of Erika Kobayashi's novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity was published by Astra House in 2022 and won the 2022-2023 Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, and his translation of Kobayashi's collection Sunrise: Radiant Stories came out in 2023, also from Astra House.

Other translations of his have appeared in venues including Granta, Aperture, LitHub, Rikka Zine, CrimeReads, The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories (Penguin Classics, 2020), Queer: LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday (Head of Zeus, 2021), and The Art and Craft of Asian Stories (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Featured Work

Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, by Kōhei Saitō

January 2024 (Astra House Books) (In UK: Orion)
North American cover of Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto

Why, in our affluent society, do so many people live in poverty, without access to health care, working multiple jobs and are nevertheless unable to make ends meet, with no future prospects, while the planet is burning?

In his international bestseller, Kohei Saito argues that while unfettered capitalism is often blamed for inequality and climate change, subsequent calls for “sustainable growth” and a “Green New Deal” are a dangerous compromise. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on the value of products rather than their usefulness and by putting perpetual growth above all else. It is therefore impossible to reverse climate change in a capitalist society—more: the system that caused the problem in the first place cannot be an integral part of the solution.

Instead, Saito advocates for degrowth and deceleration, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production. In practical terms, he argues for:

—the end of mass production and mass consumption
—decarbonization through shorter working hours
—the prioritization of essential labor over corporate profits

By returning to a system of social ownership, he argues, we can restore abundance and focus on those activities that are essential for human life, effectively reversing climate change and saving the planet.

Other Works

  • Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, by Erika Kobayashi

    June 2022 (Astra House Books)

  • Sunrise: Radiant Stories, by Erika Kobayashi

    July 2023 (Astra House Books)

  • The Shining Sea, by Kōji Suzuki

    July 2022 (Vertical/Kodansha USA)

  • "Precious Stones" by Erika Kobayashi, in Elemental: Earth Stories

    2021 (Two Lines Press)

  • Animals Brag About Their Bottoms, by Maki Saito

    2020 (Greystone Kids)

  • "Pink" by Tomoyuki Hoshino, in The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories

    2018 (Penguin)

  • "Red" by Nakamoto Takako & "The Path to Proletarian Realism" by Kurahara Korehito, in For Dignity, Justice, and Revolution: An Anthology of Japanese Proletarian Literature

    2016 (University of Chicago Press)

  • We, the Children of Cats: Stories and Novellas by Tomoyuki Hoshino

    2012 (PM Press)

Awards and Recognition

  • Winner of 2022-2023 Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for "Trinity, Trinity, Trinity" by Erika Kobayashi (Astra House 2022)
  • Runner-up in Asymptote's 2017 Close Approximations Translated Fiction Contest for my translation of "See" by Erika Kobayashi
  • Longlisted for 2013 Best Translated Book Award for "We, The Children of Cats: Stories and Novellas by Tomoyuki Hoshino" (PM Press, 2012)

Press and Media Mentions