Anna Sanner

Anna Sanner, born in Hannover in 1980, studied Japanese Studies in Scotland and Japanese interpreting and translation in England. After her studies, she spent five years in Japan working as a teacher, translator, interpreter, show ninja, and go-go dancer. She then worked for a year as a circus instructor in an artists’ village in the Hawaiian jungle. Sanner has published poetry, short stories, and essays; her memoir How to Become a Ninja in Japan appeared in 2022. Her distinctions include third place in the Bonn Literature Prize in 2019, the Translasien Scholarship in 2021, and first prize in the Japanese Ministry of Culture’s JLPP Literary Translation Competition in 2025.