Elmer Luke

• Translation Editor and Publishing Consultant

Elmer Luke followed a generalist path that wound its way to contemporary Japanese literature in translation. He edited literary fiction and nonfiction at publishing houses in New York before moving to Tokyo, where he worked on books on architecture, finance, and baseball, and then on three translated novels of a writer unknown to the West. That writer was Murakami Haruki. Luke has since worked with a raft of authors and translators. He has consulted for the Japanese Literature Publishing Project, the Nippon Foundation, and the Tokyo International Literary Festival; he has edited for Granta, the Keshiki chapbook series, and Pushkin Press; and he and David Karashima produced the anthology March Was Made of Yarn, stories and essays on the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, published by Vintage Random House. He lives in Upstate New York.