Speaker

Roger Pulvers

Acclaimed author, playwright, theatre and film director, translator and journalist – has published more than 65 books in Japanese and English. In 2017 the feature film of Star Sand, written and directed by Roger, had wide release throughout Japan. His two memoirs – My Japan: A Cultural Memoir and The Unmaking of an American – have been praised as forming a unique record of cultural life in Japan in the past fifty years. His latest book is a memoir written in Japanese (『時の一針一針』Stitches in Time). Roger has worked extensively in film, television and theatre. He was assistant to director Oshima Nagisa on the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, starring David Bowie, Tom Conti and Sakamoto Ryuichi. He has twice directed major productions at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, and his translation/adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector toured Australia in a Bell Shakespeare Co. production. Roger received the prestigious Miyazawa Kenji Prize in 2008 and the Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2013; in 2018, Japan’s highest honour, the Order of the Rising Sun; and in 2019, the Order of Australia (AM). Over the past fifty years he has translated prose, drama and poetry from Japanese, Russian and Polish.