Zack Davisson is an award-winning writer, translator, and lecturer who has played a significant role in making Japanese folklore and literature accessible to English-speaking audiences. He is on faculty at NYU in the Center for Publishing, Writing, and Media.

Respected in both academic and popular culture circles for his knowledge of translation and cultural history, Davisson has won three Eisner Awards and a Bram Stoker Award, and his work has been translated into multiple languages.

Davisson is the author of Yurei: The Japanese Ghost, Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan, Yokai Stories, and The Ultimate Guide to Japanese Yokai. W. W. Norton publishes a revised and expanded edition of Kaibyo in 2026, followed by Kitsune: Supernatural Foxes of Japan in 2027. He has also independently published Narrow Road and Amabie: Past and Present.

His scholarly work includes "The Persistence of Yokai" in Education About Asia, published by the Association for Asian Studies, and commissioned essays in the exhibition catalogues Japan Supernatural: Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters, 1700s to Now (Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Yokai: Ghosts, Demons & Monsters of Japan (Museum of New Mexico Press). He contributed "Translating Leiji Matsumoto" to Leiji Matsumoto: Essays on the Manga and Anime Legend from McFarland, and the Amabie comic "Yokai Parade Presents Amabie" to COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology from Penn State University Press.

As a translator he has published sixteen works by Shigeru Mizuki, including the multiple Eisner Award-winning Showa: A History of Japan, Tono Monogatari, and the folklore comic Kitaro. Ten of these carry his own critical essays on Mizuki and his place in yokai history, including a serialized study of the publication history of Kitaro. He has also translated Go Nagai's Devilman and Cutie Honey, Leiji Matsumoto's Space Battleship Yamato and Captain Harlock, Satoshi Kon's Opus, and Gou Tanabe's Lovecraft adaptations. His comics work includes Ultimate X-Men for Marvel with Peach Momoko, Overwatch: Mizuki from Blizzard Games, Wayward from Image, and The Art of Star Wars Visions from Lucasfilm.

He has lectured on manga, folklore, and translation at Duke University, the Annapolis Naval Academy, Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, UCLA, and the University of Washington, and has contributed to exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art, Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Världskulturmuseerna Stockholm, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He has worked with National Geographic and the Smithsonian, and has been featured on NPR, the BBC, and The New York Times.

He currently lives in Seattle, WA with his wife Miyuki, dog Mochi, cat Shere Khan, and several ghosts.