Alison Watts

Alison Watts is a translator of contemporary Japanese and East Asian literature. Her translation of Durian Sukegawa's sweetly moving novel Sweet Bean Paste — the story of a man who begins a new friendship through dorayaki pastries in small-town Japan — helped the book find a devoted international readership.

Watts, who works from Japanese in collaboration with regional authors and teams, is among the translators who brought a wave of twenty-first-century quiet bestsellers of Japanese literature to English. Her translations are praised for preserving the gentle cadence and deep emotion of the originals.