MICHAEL EMMERICH teaches Japanese Literature at UCLA. He is the highly acclaimed translator of twenty books, including Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata's First Snow on Fuji and Dandelions; Banana Yoshimoto's Asleep, Goodbye Tsugumi and Hardboiled & Hard Luck; Genichiro Takahashi's Sayonara Gangsters; and Kawakami Hiromi's Manazuru. His scholarly works include The Tale of Genji- Translation, Canonization, and World Literature.