Credit: Aimee Shirley
Kusi Okamura is an Asian-Irish writer based in Berlin, Germany. A former broadcast and print journalist, her work has appeared in The Irish Times, HuffPost, and The Stinging Fly. She founded and edited the online magazine The Wild Word, which ran for eight years and published 78 issues.
She was an organiser and a judge for the Berlin Writing Prize in partnership with the Irish Embassy in Berlin, and has mentored writers in Florida prisons through the Exchange for Change foundation.
Her recent essay appears in The Memories of Others (Atelier EXB/Prestel, 2024), a book on the Irish work of her father, the Japanese war photographer Akihiko Okamura. It was a winner of a Special Mention at the Arles Historical Book Award 2024, and shortlisted for the Paris Photo and Prix Nadar 2024. She also features in the award-winning documentary of the same name, which continues to tour internationally.
She is currently working on a memoir about reconnecting with her father through his rediscovered photographs of The Troubles.