Marin Takikawa, Agent & Rights Director

Before joining TFA in early 2021, I got my start as an assistant to three agents at Foundry Literary + Media, following internships at The Book Group, Folio Literary Management, and Triada U.S. Born in Tokyo and raised in Singapore and NYC, I graduated from the University of Rochester with degrees in English and Business. I supported Molly Friedrich and Lucy Carson for 4 years, and now handle foreign and audio rights for the agency. I’m an eclectic reader, and hope that my list will showcase this range as well—in addition to adult fiction and nonfiction, I also am looking to represent select YA.

For adult fiction, I’m always seeking innovative—both in idea and structure—literary/upmarket fiction that’s lush, evocative, and full of heart(break). I’m also looking for family sagas, novels that subvert forms of power, specifically relating to colonialism/imperialism, and engages with social and environmental issues. I’m also particularly enamored by genre-bending works: speculative concepts, ghost stories, magical realism, and anything that plays with myth and folklore will always catch my eye!

For YA, I’m looking for voice-driven and literary-leaning novels with the emotional breadth and depth in the tradition of authors like Emily X. R. Pan and Kelly Loy Gilbert—although I won’t say no to sweeter contemporary YA (my comfort reads are Anna & the French Kiss, Love & Gelato, and Better Than the Movies)! I’m also excited by speculative concepts and am not afraid of going dark. Give me all your gothic, atmospheric, haunting books (especially with a sense of mystery and adventure)! Some of my recent favorite YA books are If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang, All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir, and Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley.

In adult nonfiction, I gravitate toward community-oriented narrative nonfiction with engaging and insightful research or reportage, as well as social/cultural histories and criticisms. I’m also looking for narrative nonfiction that is intersectional, resistant, and radical in nature, that questions why we have the institutions, ideas, and systems we have in place. I often think about the legacies of colonialism, how it haunts and perpetuates in various forms in the modern age (such as the environment and in capitalism), but also about collective action/liberation and its sense of possibilities and what an equitable future could look like. I’d love to hear from you if your work is in this space. *Please note that I’m not looking for memoir at this time, although I’ll be open to considering memoirs written by BIPOC.

Regardless of category, I’m looking for a singular voice that will guide me through any literary terrain and is not afraid of pushing against the status quo. And above all, it’s of utmost importance to me that my list is filled with writers from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities, as well as diasporic voices.

In my spare time, you can find me dancing, watching anime, or hiking. I’m fluent in Japanese, and you also probably don’t want to bad-mouth me in Mandarin ;)

Five non-agency books I loved: HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK; SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS; HEADS OF THE COLORED PEOPLE; GOODBYE, VITAMIN; THE SUBTLE KNIFE. P.S.: pronounced marine 😎

Recent Deals

Q&A

1. Books that represented your childhood, teenage years, and adult life (so far)?

What a tough question! There are so many titles from my childhood that I look back on fondly. Books like Walk Two Moons, the Inkheart trilogy, the Princess Diaries series, Princess Academy, and The Mysterious Benedict Society shaped my love for stories about believing in oneself and fighting for what’s right and important.

For my teenage years, it would be His Dark Materials trilogy—I’m cheating a little here: the trilogy was such a big part of my childhood but I never felt like I fully got it. But I reread the books after taking AP English, where we discussed works such as Dante’s Inferno and Paradise Lost, and it opened up a whole new world of ideas and layers that just made the trilogy *click*. Oh, and this is really random but True Singapore Ghost Stories also was a big part of my teenage years. I was exempt from taking a foreign language in secondary school; so on days when I didn’t use my extra period for homework (we spent it in the school library btw), I would gulp down volumes of these ghost stories.

For my 20s, and upon entering the publishing world, I’ve come to realize how I wasn’t really able to see myself in the stories I read (granted I was able to offset that growing up with manga, Asian dramas and movies I watched, but still!). So books like Everything I Never Told You touched a core part of my soul. Because of this, I’m driven to find more voices that add their individual nuances and histories to a largely canonical representation of minority experiences. Life is long so this list will, I’m sure, be updated!

2. What books are on your nightstand?

Real Americans by Rachel Khong, How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo, She is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran.

3. Short stories and/or essays that blew you away?

Stories: “New Fruit” and “Gubeikou Spirit” by Te-Ping Chen, “Suicide Watch” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, “Poor Unfortunate Fools” by Silvia Park, “Bone Ward” by Kate Folk.

Essays: “On Jellyfish” by Nina Li Coomes, “My Grandmother and the Sturgeon” by Sabrina Imbler

4. Last book that made you cry?

This is cheating because 1. the book’s not even out yet and 2. it’s an agency book but it’s Silvia Park’s forthcoming debut novel LUMINOUS (March 2025). I can’t remember the last time I was absolutely obliterated by a book to the extent that Silvia’s did (actually, I do, and it was The Book Thief many many years ago!). It’s so so brilliant and original and… GAH, you just have to read it!! Keep your eyes peeled!!! 👀👀

5. What are you NOT looking for?

Space operas, high fantasy, medical memoirs (in general, I’m shying away from straight memoir that doesn’t incorporate some kind of research/analysis/cultural commentary), anything epistolary, satire (unless high concept), picture books, military anything. If infidelity is a core part of the premise, that’s also not for me.