Synth pioneer, film composer, and environmental activist Ryuichi Sakamoto takes us through the hills and valleys of a five-decade musical career in his new autobiography Music Sets You Free, published in English by HarperVia. Join the translator, Sam Bett, and his editor, Alexa Frank, for a discussion of Sakamoto's life, work, and philosophy, along with a lively conversation of the translation strategies Sam and Alexa used to arrive at an English voice for Sakamoto's life story. 

Sam Bett is a fiction writer and Japanese translator of fiction by Osamu Dazai, Izumi Suzuki, Akira Otani, Yukio Mishima, and Mieko Kawakami, including books shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the Lambda Literary Awards. A recipient of the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award from the Japanese government, Sam is a winner of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize and the CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation.

Alexa Frank is an Editor at HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop and the Fulbright Program, she has edited titles such as Tomihiko Morimi’s The Tatami Galaxy (shortlisted for the 2023 PEN Translation Prize) and Lin Yi-Han’s Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise (shortlisted for the Baifang Schell Books Prize). Her forthcoming titles include books by Francoise Sagan, Hitomi Kanehara, and Sabina Urraca. She has guest lectured at Bard College, Hunter College, and Waseda University. Alexa also translates Japanese manga, such as Fumiko Takano's Miss Ruki (nominated for the 2026 Harvey Awards), Kyoko Okazaki’s River’s Edge (nominated for the 2024 Eisner Awards) and Nazuna Saito’s Offshore Lightning (winner of the 2024 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Collection). In 2024, she received the Sophie Castille Award for comics in translation. Her translation of Nekojiru’s Nekojiru Udon is forthcoming from the New York Review of Comics.