He received his B.A. in English literature from Columbia University, and his M.A. in Asian Studies and Ph.D. in East Asian Literature from Cornell University. He was a Fulbright Fellow to Nagoya University, a Japan Foundation Fellow at Waseda University, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. He is now translating The Strange Tale of Panorama Island and The Case of the Murder on D-Slope, to be published by Kurodahan Press in a single volume.