Esther Andreu Martínez, 26-year-old Valencian and former student of the Master’s Degree in Creative and Humanistic Translation, has begun a two-year scholarship granted to her by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

Esther is the recipient of the Monbukagakusho grant (also known as MEXT), a scholarship awarded every year by the Government of Japan to foreign students, teachers and researchers so that they can further their knowledge of the Japanese language, Japanese themes and Japanese culture.

The student from Sagunto will develop – starting this April and for the next two years – a research project on the historic Japanese writer Unno Juza. She will do so at the Ritsumekan University of Kyoto, on the southern part of the island of Honshu.

Unno Juza, a pseudonym for Sano Shoichi (1897-1949), is widely considered to be one of the fathers of Japanese science-fiction literature. His 60-plus novels served as inspiration for the first generation of anime artists.

Esther graduated in Hispanic Philology from the University of Valencia. She participated in the Master’s Degree in Creative and Humanistic Translation during the 2014-2015 academic course.

From the moment Esther was notified about the scholarship, she has been interviewed by several media outlets, both print and digital, such as Levante-EMV or CoolJapan.es. The news of her grant has also been published in La Vanguardia or Las Provincias, amongst others.

The Embassy of Japan in Spain offers several scholarships to university-level students to study or do research in Japan, one of them being the Monbukagakusho grant. All of the can be found on the Embassy’s website.