David Mura

David Mura’s most recent book is the acclaimed The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives. His previous book was on creative writing and race, A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing. With essayist Carolyn Holbrook, Mura is co-editor of an anthology of 2021 Minnesota BIPOC writers, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World.

Mura is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, fiction writer, critic, playwright and performance artist.  A Sansei or third generation Japanese American, Mura has written two memoirs: Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei , which won a 1991 Josephine Miles Book Award from the Oakland PEN and was listed in the New York Times Notable Books of Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity. His novel Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the John Gardner Fiction Prize and Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award.

Mura has written four books of poetry, including Angels for the Burning and The Last Incantations. His second, The Colors of Desire, won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library, and his first After We Lost Our Way was a National Poetry Contest winner. 

Mura co-produced, wrote and narrated the Emmy winning documentary by Twin Cities Public Television, Armed With Language, about the Japanese American Military Intelligence Services linguists who served in WWII.

Mura has taught at colleges and universities around the country. He served as Director of Training for The Innocent Classroom, a program designed by writer and educator Alexs Pate to train K-12 teachers to improve their relationships with students of color. In 2019 he won the Kay Sexton Award for contributions to Minnesota literature by the Friends of the St. Paul Library and the Minnesota Book Awards.