The World from PRX

Abigail LeonardAL

Abigail Leonard

Abigail Leonard is a Tokyo-based journalist who covers Japanese politics and culture. Stories she reported from Japan earned a 2018 National Headliner Award and a 2018 James Beard Foundation Media Award Nomination. She was a 2011 East-West Center Japan Fellow, a 2010 UN Foundation Journalism Fellow and is currently Vice President of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, a 2,000-member national press club. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys biking around Tokyo with her two kids.
uchimizu event
Energy
How Japan keeps its cool when temps are high
whaling
Food
In Japan, few people eat whale meat anymore, but whaling remains popular
Iwao Hakamada sit I with a window behind him
Free after five decades on death row, a Japanese man may be forced to return
A woman in a black dress stands on a city street in Japan. Signs with Japanese characters are behind her, on restaurants and billboards.
Japan’s youngest female mayor takes on its oldest all-male sport
Naohiro Kimura is founding editor of the "Hikikomori News," for people like him who are shut-ins who have trouble leaving their homes. Japan estimates there are about a half million "hikikomori" (shut-ins) but Kimura thinks the number is much higher.
Culture
In Japan, there’s a newspaper by people who couldn’t leave their homes
Jamal is a Syrian refugee living in Tokyo. He's made friends there and learned Japanese. But he misses Syrian food.
Global Politics
Meet one of the handful of Syrians granted asylum in Japan