Marin Takikawa, Agent & Foreign 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 have the immense privilege of selling foreign rights for the agency and have brokered deals in over forty different countries on behalf of authors like Alison Espach, the Estate of Frank McCourt, and many others. I’m an eclectic reader, and hope that my list will showcase this range as well—I represent mostly literary/upmarket fiction and YA and am selective on narrative nonfiction.

For adult fiction, I’m always seeking innovative—both in idea and structure—literary and upmarket fiction that’s bold, subversive, and full of heart(break). I love an irreverent and sharp voice, and I also find myself reaching for fiction that is able to balance darkness with some kind of humor/wit. Thematically, I’m very into works that lie at the intersection of race, class, and belonging; and conceptually, I love myself an imaginative speculative premise! As of late, I’ve been looking high and low for a stunning literary love story that transcends time and distance, and a bold coming-of-age.

For YA, I’m looking for high concept and voice-driven novels that are equally vibrant as they are pacey and layered—I hope to find novels that reverberate and stay with you long after the last page. I’m excited by speculative concepts and get doubly excited when they go hand in hand with a deep cultural connection. Give me all your atmospheric and haunting books (especially with a sense of mystery and adventure)! Some of my recent favorite YA books are If You Could See the Sun, All My Rage, and Firekeeper’s Daughter.

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. (My interests also definitely cross-pollinate across fiction, non-fiction, and YA if that’s helpful to note.) 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, I mentor for POC in Pub and you can also find me dancing (hip-hop), watching anime, or hiking. I’m fluent in Japanese, and you also probably don’t want to bad-mouth me in Mandarin ;)

Non-agency books I loved: EXIT WEST; BROKEN COUNTRY; TOMORROW, TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW; MIGRATIONS; HOW TO HIDE AN EMPIRE; THE SUBTLE KNIFE, FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER. P.S.: pronounced marine 😎

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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?

Nanny Nanny by K Chiucarello, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, All That is Left of Life by Roberta Recchia, How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa.

3. 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), picture books, middle grade, military anything, Christian fiction.