Takako Arai was born in 1966 in Kiryū City, Gunma Prefecture (Japan) to a family engaged in textile manufacturing, a traditional industry in Kiryū. She is a graduate of Keio University's literature department. Her first collection of poetry, Haōbekki, was published in 1997. Her second collection, Tamashii Dance (Soul Dance) was published in 2007 and awarded the 41st Oguma Hideo Prize. A collection of English translations of her poetry, Soul Dance, was published in 2008 by Mi’Te Press. Many of the poems in this collection describe the continuing economic troubles in her hometown. Information about Soul Dance can be found at http://mi-te-press.net/index_e.html.

Since 1998 she has been a contributor to, and eventually editor of Mi’Te, a magazine featuring poetry and criticism. Arai also writes on language and folklore, and has produced a series of writings on the poet Sakutarō Hagiwara. She has an interest in the performing arts, especially the butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno, and the playwright, Jūrō Kara. She teaches Japanese language and culture to foreign students at Saitama University's Center for International Exchange. In 2006, she performed at the Festival of Contemporary Japanese Women Poets in New York City, and in 2008, she was on the Executive Committee planning the Tokyo Poetry Festival.

Translator Jeffrey Angles (b. 1971) is an assistant professor of Japanese literature and director of the Japanese program at Western Michigan University (USA).  He is the co-editor of the book Japan: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, 2006) and the translator of a collection of the poetry of Chimako Tada, which is forthcoming from University of California Press.  He has also published translations of a variety of twentieth and twenty-first century writers, including Ranpo Edogawa, Sakutarō Hagiwara, Taruho Inagaki, Kyūsaku Yumeno, Kaita Murayama, Sei Itō, Hiromi Itō, and Yasuki Fukushima.  He recently won two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the PEN Club of America to translate the memoirs of the poet Mutsuo Takahashi.