Kenji Miyazawa was the eldest son of a pawnbroker in the town of Hanamaki, in the remote prefecture of Iwate. After studying agriculture and forestry, he worked as a teacher at an agricultural school, leaving after five years to found the Las Farmers Association. In the last years of his life he travelled around villages teaching the science of rice cultivation. Miyazawa’s writings have been published in Japan at least three times in multi-volume collected works and scores of separate editions, illustrated and otherwise.

John Montague (born 28 February 1929) is an Irish poet. He was born in New York and brought up in Tyrone. He has published a number of volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories and two volumes of memoir. He is one of the best known Irish contemporary poets. In 1998 he became the first occupant of the Ireland Chair of Poetry(virtually Ireland's Poet laureate.)