Ko Tazawa

Ko Tazawa is one of those people who makes you stop and think about the roads not taken. Born in Yokohama in 1953, he somehow ended up at the University of Barcelona studying Catalan philology — not exactly the obvious move for a kid from Kanagawa. He spent his life as a translator, philologist, and author, quietly building bridges between Japanese readers and Catalan culture at a time when that kind of work was genuinely rare and painstaking. The Sant Jordi Cross he received from the Government of Catalonia in 2003 tells you everything: this wasn't a guy chasing fame, it was the Catalan cultural establishment saying "hey, this person actually matters to us." He passed away in September 2022 at 69, just two days after his birthday, which feels weirdly poetic for someone who dedicated his whole life to language and the weight of words. The quiet ones leave the deepest marks.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Ko Tazawa (1953–2022) was a Japanese translator, philologist, and author born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. A graduate of Hitotsubashi University, he earned a doctorate in Catalan linguistics at the University of Barcelona and became a professor, later professor emeritus, at Hosei University. He translated Catalan literature into Japanese and Japanese literature into Catalan, and was awarded the Cross of Sant Jordi by the Government of Catalonia. He passed away on September 24, 2022, at the age of 69.

Name (English)

Ko Tazawa

Name (Japanese)

田澤耕

Reading

たざわ こう

Born

September 22, 1953 – September 24, 2022

Origin

Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan

Occupation

Translator / Philologist / Author

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Virgo / Snake

High school

Yamate Gakuin Junior & Senior High School

University

University of Barcelona

Awards & achievements

• 2003 — Cross of Sant Jordi

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%94%B0%E6%BE%A4%E8%80%95
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20101907

Tags

• From Kanagawa
• Translator
• Philologist
• Author

Last updated

November 2, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.