Lowitz, Leza

Leza Lowitz was born December 29, 1962 in San Francisco. Lowitz received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California-Berkeley 1984 and a M.A. in English from San Francisco State University 1988. She was a lecturer at San Francisco State University, Rikkyo University in Tokyo, and Tokyo University.

Lowitz worked as an advertising copywriter for Kanebo Cosmetics. She wrote about Japanese literature and art for the Japan Times, Art in America, the Asahi Evening News and Tokyo Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Her essays on expatriate life were broadcast regularly on NHK Radio’s “Japan Diary.” Lowitz, alongside Edgar Honetschlager, co-wrote a Japanese film entitled MILK. She was also a corresponding editor for Mānoa.

Lowitz’s publications include, NPR’s “The Sound of Writing;” Yellow Silk; Awaiting a Lover; An Eye For An Eye: Poets on 9/11, etc.; Translations in A Chorus for Peace; A ZigZag Joy; It’s A Woman’s World; and Haiku: The Poetry of Zen.

She was honored with the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, a fellowship in Translation from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Independent Scholar Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the California Arts Council Artists Fellowship in Poetry, the Tokyo Journal Fiction Translation Award and, the Japanophile Fiction Award.

Lowitz married Japanese writer and translator Shogo Oketani in March 1995. She is currently reviewing books for KQED Radio’s “Pacific Time,” writing and teaching yoga.

From the guide to the Lowitz, Leza. Papers, 1982-2005, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)