Hiromi Ito, Tomoko Sawada, and Yukiko Motoya, look at women's roles in Japanese culture today plus the Japanese view of English-language literature with translator Motoyuki Shibata. Philip Dodd presents. Bethan Jones acted as the translator.

Japan Now 2020 is a series of events taking place in Sheffield, Norwich and London organised by Modern Culture culminating in a day of events at the British Library on Saturday February 22nd.

Hiromi Itō is one of the most prominent women writers in Japan who looks at sexuality motherhood and the body in her work which is translated by Jeffrey Angles. Yukiko Motoya’s first book in English, Picnic In The Storm, is a collection of short stories which include salary men being swept skywards by their umbrellas, to a married couple morphing into one another’s bodies. It was the winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize. It is translated by Asa Yoneda Tomoko Sawada is a photographer and performance artist whose work explores gender roles and cultural stereotypes from a strongly feminist perspective. Translator Motoyuki Shibata, has introduced writers like Paul Auster, Richard Powers, Edward Gorey and Steven Millhauser to Japanese readers.

You can find more programmes in the playlist Free Thinking explores Japanese culture https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0657spq

Producer: Luke Mulhall