Clara Kumagai

Writer | Editor | Lecturer

Clara Kumagai is from Canada, Japan and Ireland.
Her debut YA novel, Catfish Rolling, will be published by Zephyr in March 2023.

She is represented by Angelique Tran Van Sang at Felicity Bryan Associates.

– Publications –

Catfish Rolling

Published By – Zephyr – Release Date: March 2nd 2023

I’m delighted to announce that my debut YA novel CATFISH ROLLING will be released in 2023!

It has found a wonderful home at Zephyr and will be released in the UK and world (excl. North America) on March 2nd 2023.

You can preorder it here:
Bookshop.org / Amazon / Kobo

And I am over the moon to announce that Amulet Books will release CATFISH ROLLING in the US and Penguin Teen Canada will be its home in Canada!

Release date: Autumn 2023 (exact date TBA)

Memorials

Published By – The Stinging Fly

The body can translate into any language. A jump, a twist midair, the conviction of feet returning to ground: they are impressive wherever he goes. So it is a simple pleasure to do this, an art that requires both intense concentration and a peaceful emptiness of mind. 

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Finding Homes in the Unfamiliar

Published By – Japan Insights

Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, born in 1850, was a writer of several names and many places. Son of an Irish father and Greek mother, Hearn lived in and wrote of the US and the West Indies, but it's for his writings about Japan that he is most famous.

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Feeling the fusion on the dancefloor at Féile Tokyo

Published By – T h e I r i s h T i m e s

I stand at the edge of the dance floor, thinking that this isn’t really like the Gaeltacht céilís of my youth. There are several differences: the dancers are confident and know all the steps, the age range is far wider than secondary school teenagers, everyone is Japanese, and I’m in Tokyo.

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Ringworm

Published By – Banshee Press

She was a child who moved worms out of harm’s way and released flies caught in spider webs. She would shriek without shame at anyone who dared squelch a slug under boot. She had a loud voice.

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Real Boys

Published By – The Stinging fly

Before I was a donkey, I was a boy.
I’ve been in this same field for a while now. It might be years. I’m old, I suppose. It’s not that I can’t measure time; it’s just that I don’t care enough to.

— Read More