Shiori Ito

Shiori Ito (born 1989) is an award-winning freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker who contributes news footage and documentaries to the Economist, Al Jazeera, Reuters, and other primarily non-Japanese media outlets. In 2017 she published Back Box about her own experiences as a rape survivor, making her one of the few women in Japan to speak out against sexual assault. She is the winner of the 7th FPAJ (Free Press Association of Japan) Best Journalism Award. In 2020, she was named one of TIME's Most Influential People of the year.

Allison Markin Powell has been awarded grants from English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakaami. Her translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders, served as cochair of the PEN America Translation Committee and currently represents the committee on PEN’s Board of Trustees, and she maintains the database Japanese Literature in English.