Hiroaki Sato is a prolific, award-winning writer of books on Japanese history and literature, and a translator of classical and modern Japanese poetry into English. American poet Gary Snyder has called Sato "perhaps the finest translator of contemporary Japanese poetry into American English."

He is the author of the classic works Legends of the Samurai. and The Sword and the Mind

His reviews and articles have appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times Book Review, AsiaWeek, Mainichi Daily News, St. Andrews Review, Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, The Journal of American and Canadian Studies, Comparative Literature Studies, The Japan Times, The Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Modern Haiku, Japan Focus, and others.

He recently received the 2017-2018 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Translation Prize for Silver Spoon (Stone Bridge Press).