Arisa Yasaka is a Japanese translator whose work includes cultural history and nonfiction. A graduate of Rikkyo University’s Faculty of Letters, she began studying translation with Sadatoku Bekku in 1995. Her co-translation of Lawrence Wright’s history of the bed explores how bedrooms and sleeping arrangements reflect changes in everyday life and society. In John Carlin’s Playing the Enemy, published in Japanese as Invictus, she translated an account of Nelson Mandela’s attempt to bridge South Africa’s racial divisions through the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The book connects political decisions with personal feeling and the public power of sport. She also co-translated Helen C. Brittin’s The Food and Culture Around the World Handbook, which examines the foodways of 195 countries in relation to geography, religion, ethnicity and celebrations. Across these projects, Yasaka brings readers accounts of how people live within different cultures and how shared experiences can cross social divisions.
