Mako Yoshikawa is the author of the novels One Hundred and One Ways and Once Removed. Her novels have been translated into six languages; awards include a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant and a Radcliffe Fellowship. As a literary critic, she has published articles that explore the relationship between incest and race in 20th-century American fiction. After her father’s death in 2010, she began writing essays which have appeared in the Missouri Review, Southern Indiana Review, Harvard Review, Story, LitHub, Best American Essays, Longreads, and elsewhere. Her memoir about her father, Secrets of the Sun, was published in 2024.

As well as her MFA classes, Mako regularly teaches Comedic Lit to undergraduates in Emerson’s Comedic Arts program. She also teaches as often as she can in the Emerson Prison Initiative, a degree-granting program that is based in MCI-Norfolk, a medium-security prison for men.

Mako and her husband live in Cambridge with two beloved, badly behaved cats.

Recently Taught MFA Courses: Novel Workshop; Fiction Workshop; Reading Like a Writer: Craft and the Contemporary Novel; Craft and the Contemporary Short Story; Craft and Comedic Literature.

One Hundred and One Ways book jacket Once Removed book jacket

About

Education

B.A., Columbia University
M.Phil., Oxford University
Ph.D., University of Michigan

Areas of Expertise

  • American Studies
  • Creative Writing
  • Literature

Publications

One Hundred and One Ways

1999

Once Removed

2003