Andrew Horvat
Consultant
Vancouver, Canada
–Andrew Horvat
Journalist turned academic, Andrew has developed a life-long taste for living and working across boundaries of language and culture. During a decades-long career as Tokyo-based correspondent for the Associated Press, Southam News of Canada, the Los Angeles Times, the London Independent and American Public Radio, Andrew has reported from some 20 countries and regions in the Asia Pacific.
From 1999 to 2005, as Japan representative of the Asia Foundation, Andrew organized symposiums on immigration, treatment of minorities, the role of women in the workplace, and other policy-related topics in Asia. From 2008 to 2013 Andrew served as director of Stanford University’s overseas studies program in Kyoto where he taught courses in modern Japanese history and Japanese-to-English translation. He continued to teach courses on Japan to exchange students at Josai International University until returning to Vancouver in 2022.
Andrew has been a visiting fellow at Simon Fraser University’s David Lam Centre for International Communication, Stanford University’s Center for East Asian Studies, and at the National Foreign Language Center in Washington DC. His research at Stanford on the increasing popularity of Japanese language study by non-native speakers was funded by an Abe Shintaro Fellowship.
Andrew has advised the Japan Foundation on Japanese language policy and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation on exchanges with Central European countries. Andrew’s radio documentary, Japanese Language: Bridge or Barrier, was awarded a Citation for Excellence in Business Reporting by the Overseas Press Club of America. He is the author of several popular books on language learning including Japanese Beyond Words (Stonebridge Press) and has translated works by the Japanese novelist Kobo Abe. Andrew received his B.A. and M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of British Columbia.