Clara Kumagai
Writer | Editor | Lecturer
Clara Kumagai is from Ireland, Japan and Canada.
Her debut YA novel, Catfish Rolling, was a YOTO Carnegie Medal nominee, shortlisted for the Great Reads Award and winner of the 2024 KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Books of the Year.
Her sophomore novel, Songs for Ghosts, was longlisted for the YOTO Carnegie Medal for fiction and the Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize 2026.
She lives in Ireland.
Books
Songs for Ghosts
A YA coming-of-age novel full of longing, love and ghosts from the past, inspired by both Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Japanese history.
Seventeen-year-old Adam has just broken up with his boyfriend Evan and is not looking forward to the excruciating awkwardness at school for the rest of term or a whole summer stuck at home with his dad, stepmom and baby brother, Benji.
But then Adam discovers a diary in some boxes in the attic and is quickly enthralled by their poignant story. They were written by a young woman living in Nagasaki in 1911. Adam is enraptured by her life and loves, becoming totally absorbed in her story. And then he starts to be haunted by her ghostly presence…
Equal parts globe-trotting love drama, chilling ghost story and exploration of Japanese history, Songs for Ghosts's poetic prose and memorable characters will leave readers breathless.
Longlisted for the 2026 YOTO Carnegie Medal for Writing and the Jhalak Children and Young Adult Prize, and a White Pine Award nominee.
Catfish Rolling
Magic-realism blends with Japanese myth and legend in an original story about grief, memory, time and an earthquake that shook a nation.
There's a catfish under the islands of Japan and when it rolls the land rises and falls.
Sora hates the catfish whose rolling caused an earthquake so powerful it cracked time itself. It destroyed her home and took her mother. Now Sora and her scientist father live close to the zones – the wild and abandoned places where time runs faster or slower than normal. Sora is sensitive to the shifts, and her father recruits her help in exploring these liminal spaces.
But it's dangerous there – and as she strays further inside in search of her mother, she finds that time distorts, memories fracture and shadows, a glimmer of things not entirely human, linger. After Sora's father goes missing, she has no choice but to venture into uncharted spaces within the time zones to find him, her mother and perhaps even the catfish itself...
Winner Of The KPMG Children's Books Ireland Book Of The Year 2024
Other Published Works
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![Old gravestones in a cemetery with colorful hydrangea bushes and greenery in the background.]()
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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![View through sliding glass door of traditional Japanese garden with trimmed trees and rocks.]()
Finding Homes in the Unfamiliar
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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![People dancing and socializing at an event with banners and balloons, some in vintage clothing.]()
Feeling the fusion on the dancefloor at Féile Tokyo
Published By – The Irish Times
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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![Close-up of a black and white dairy cow's face with other cows in a field at sunset.]()
Ringworm
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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![Close-up of a donkey's face in a grassy field with trees and a fence in the background.]()
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.
Upcoming Events
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UCC Presents Clara Kumagai & John Patrick McHugh
Thursday Mar 26th, 18:00 to 19:30
University College Cork School of English & Digital Humanities invites you to an evening with novelists Clara Kumagai and John Patrick McHugh in the Creative Zone, Boole Library, UCC on Thursday 26 March from 6pm. Light refreshments will be served and the event is free; however, booking is essential.
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Conference on Children's Literature 2026
March 28th, 12:15-13:30
A conference on children's literature at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's, hosted by the Children's Writing Fellow.
Panel: ‘Magical Realism, Science Fiction and Fantasy for Young Readers’ with Clara Kumagai, Siobhán Murphy and Heather Bouwman
Book an Event
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I facilitate creative writing workshops for writers of all abilities, from teens to adults. Workshops can focus on the basics of storytelling to specific topics such as speculative fiction, worldbuilding, or an introduction to writing YA.
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I’ve visited primary and secondary schools all across Ireland, and always enjoy meeting young readers! Presentations are usually 45-90 mins long, featuring readings, inspirations and research behind my books, and an audience Q&A.
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I have done panels, interviews and solo presentations at a wide range of literary festivals and events, including Hay Festival, International Literature Festival Dublin, Vancouver Writers Festival and Cúirt, among others.
I also have experience moderating panels and interviewing authors, including Sayaka Murata, Carmen Maria Machado and Saeed Teebi.