Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. Keene was University

Professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, where he taught for over fifty years. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, he retired from Columbia, moved to Japan permanently, and acquired citizenship under the name . This was also his poetic and occasional nickname, spelled in the ''

ateji In modern Japanese, principally refers to kanji used to phonetically represent native or borrowed words with less regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to in Old Japanese. Conversely, also refers to kanji use ...

'' form .

Early life and education

Keene was born in 1922 in the Flatbush section of

Brooklyn, New York City Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, behi ...

and attended James Madison High School. He received a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

from

in 1942 and studied under

Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...

Moses Hadas Moses Hadas (June 25, 1900, Atlanta, Georgia – August 17, 1966) was an American teacher, a classical scholar, and a translator of numerous works from Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and German. Life Raised in Atlanta in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Je ...

, Lionel Trilling, and

Jacques Barzun Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...

. He then studied the Japanese language at the United States Navy Japanese Language School in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

and in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, and served as an

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way a ...

in the Pacific region during World War II. Upon his discharge from the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

, he returned to Columbia where he earned a master's degree in 1947. Keene studied for a year at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

before transferring to

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

as a Henry Fellow, where he earned a second master's and became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1948 to 1954, and a University Lecturer from 1949 to 1955. In the interim, in 1953, he also studied at

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

, and earned a PhD from Columbia in 1949. Keene credits

Ryūsaku Tsunoda is known as the "father of Japanese studies" at Columbia University. He was directly responsible for developing the Japanese language and literature collection at Columbia's library. Prominent among the former-students who credit his influence ...

as a mentor during this period. While studying in the East Asian library at Columbia in 1941, a man whom Keene did not know invited him to dinner at the Chinese restaurant where Keene and Lee, a Chinese-American Columbia graduate student, ate every day. The man's name was Jack Kerr, and he had lived in Japan for several years and taught English in Taiwan. Kerr invited Keene to study Japanese in the summer from a student he taught in Taiwan, for Kerr to have competition when learning Japanese. Their tutor was Inomata Tadashi, and they were taught elementary spoken Japanese and

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

. While staying at Cambridge, Keene went to meet

Arthur Waley Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were ...

who was best known for his translation work in classical Chinese and Japanese literature. For Keene, Waley's translation of Chinese and Japanese literature was inspiring, even arousing in Keene the thought of becoming a second Waley.

Career

Keene was a

Japanologist Japanese studies ( Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanes ...

who published about 25 books in English on Japanese topics, including both studies of Japanese literature and culture and translations of Japanese classical and modern literature, including a four-volume history of Japanese literature which has become a standard work."Lunch with the FT: Donald Keene"
by David Pilling, ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', October 28, 2011.
Archive link
Keene also published about 30 books in Japanese, some of which have been translated from English. He was president of the Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture. Keene was awarded the

Order of Culture The is a Japanese order, established on February 11, 1937. The order has one class only, and may be awarded to men and women for contributions to Japan's art, literature, science, technology, or anything related to culture in general; recipient ...

by the Japanese government in 2008, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Imperial Family in the country, becoming the first non-Japanese to receive the award. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Keene retired from Columbia and moved to Japan with the intention of living out the remainder of his life there. He acquired Japanese citizenship, adopting the legal name . This required him to relinquish his American citizenship, as Japan does not permit

dual citizenship Multiple/dual citizenship (or multiple/dual nationality) is a legal status in which a person is concurrently regarded as a national or citizen of more than one country under the laws of those countries. Conceptually, citizenship is focused on ...

. Keene was well known and respected in Japan and his relocation there following the earthquake was widely lauded.

Personal life

In 2013 Keene adopted

shamisen The , also known as the or (all meaning "three strings"), is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument derived from the Chinese instrument . It is played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usual ...

player Seiki Uehara as a son. Keene was not married. Keene died of cardiac arrest in Tokyo on February 24, 2019, aged 96.

Selected works

In an overview of writings by and about Keene,

OCLC OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

lists roughly 600+ works in 1,400+ publications in 16 languages and 39,000+ library holdings. :''These lists are not finished; you can help Wikipedia by adding to them.''

Works in English

Works in Japanese

Translations

Chikamatsu Monzaemon was a Japanese dramatist of jōruri, the form of puppet theater that later came to be known as bunraku, and the live-actor drama, kabuki. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' has written that he is "widely regarded as the greatest Japanese dramatis ...

, ''The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance'' (Taylor's Foreign Pr, 1951) *

Dazai Osamu was a Japanese author. A number of his most popular works, such as ''The Setting Sun'' (''Shayō'') and ''No Longer Human'' (''Ningen Shikkaku''), are considered modern-day classics. His influences include Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Shiki ...

, ''

No Longer Human is a 1948 Japanese novel by Osamu Dazai. It is considered Dazai's masterpiece and ranks as the second-best selling novel ever in Japan, behind Natsume Sōseki's ''Kokoro''. The literal translation of the title, discussed by Donald Keene in hi ...

'' (New Directions, 1958) *

, ''The Major Plays of Chikamatsu'' (Columbia University Press, June 1, 1961) Includes critical commentary *

Yoshida Kenkō was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is ''Tsurezuregusa'' (''Essays in Idleness''), one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature. Kenko wrote during the Muromachi and Kamakura periods. Life and work Ken ...

, ''Essays in Idleness: The

Tsurezuregusa is a collection of essays written by the Japanese monk Kenkō (兼好) between 1330 and 1332. The work is widely considered a gem of medieval Japanese literature and one of the three representative works of the zuihitsu genre, along with ''The P ...

of Kenko'' (Columbia University Press, June 1, 1967) *

Mishima Yukio , born , was a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, Shintoist, nationalist, and founder of the , an unarmed civilian militia. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered fo ...

, ''Five Modern Noh Plays'' – Including: Madame de Sade (Tuttle, 1967) * '' Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, a Puppet Play'' (Columbia University Press, April 1, 1971) *

, '' After the Banquet'' (Random House Inc, January 1, 1973) * Abe Kobo ''The man who turned into a stick: three related plays'' (Columbia University Press, 1975). Original text published by Tokyo University Press. *

, '' The Setting Sun'' (Tuttle, 1981) * ??, ''The tale of the shining Princess'' (Metropolitan Museum of Art and Viking Press, 1981) * Abe Kobo, ''Friends: a play'' (Tuttle, 1986) * Abe Kobo, ''Three Plays'' (Columbia University Press, February 1, 1997) *

Matsuo Bashō born then was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative '' haikai no renga'' form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest ma ...

, '' The Narrow Road to Oku'' (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1997) *

Kawabata Yasunari was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

, ''The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter'' (Kodansha Amer Inc, September 1, 1998) *

Yamamoto Yuzo Yamamoto (written: lit. "base of the mountain") is the 9th most common Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *, Japanese politician *, Japanese World War II flying ace *, Japanese judoka *, Japanese manga artist and character ...

, ''One Hundred Sacks of Rice: A Stage Play'' (Nagaoka City Kome Hyappyo Foundation, 1998) * Miyata Masayuki (illustrations), Donald Keene (essay), H. Mack Horton n trans 源氏物語 – '' The Tale of Genji'' (Kodansha International, 2001). Bilingual illustrated text with essay. * Donald Keene & Oda Makoto, ''The Breaking Jewel'', Keene, Donald (trans) (Columbia University Press, March 1, 2003)

Editor

* ''Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century'' (Grove Pr, March 1, 1960) * ''The Old Woman, the Wife, and the Archer: Three Modern Japanese Short Novels'' (Viking Press, 1961) * ''Anthology of Chinese Literature: From the 14th Century to the Present Day'' (co-editor with Cyril Birch) (Grove Pr, June 1, 1987) * ''Love Songs from the Man'Yoshu'' (Kodansha Amer Inc, August 1, 2000) * ''Modern Japanese Literature from 1868 to the Present Day'' (Grove Pr, January 31, 1994)

Honorary degrees

Keene was awarded various honorary doctorates, from: *

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

(1978) *

St. Andrews Presbyterian College St. Andrews University is a private Presbyterian liberal arts college in Laurinburg, North Carolina. The university was established in 1958 as a result of a merger of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs and Presbyterian Junior College; it wa ...

(

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, 1990) *

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

(

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

, 1995) * Columbia University (New York, 1997) *

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated National ...

(

Sendai is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, desig ...

, 1997) *

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

(Tokyo, 1998) *

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies , often referred to as TUFS, is a specialist research university in Fuchū, Tokyo, Japan. TUFS is primarily devoted to foreign language, international affairs and foreign studies. It also features an Asia-African institution. History The Uni ...

(Tokyo, 1999) *

Keiwa College is a private university in Shibata, Niigata, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Ja ...

( Niigata, 2000) *

Kyoto Sangyo University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. History The university was established in 1965. The founder was Toshima Araki (, 1897–1978), and Hideo Iwakuro (岩畔豪雄 Iwakuro Hideo, 10 October 1897 – 22 November 1970), the Japanese spy ...

(

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, 2002) * Kyorin University (Tokyo, 2007) *

Toyo University is a university with several branches in Japan, including Hakusan, Asaka, Kawagoe, Itakura, and Akabane. Overview The predecessor to Toyo University was , which was founded at Rinsho-in Temple by Enryo Inoue in 1887. Inoue felt that the ...

(Tokyo, 2011) *

Japan Women's University is the oldest and largest of private Japanese women's universities. The university was established on 20 April 1901 by education reformist . The university has around 6000 students and 200 faculty. It has two campuses, named after the neighb ...

(Tokyo, 2012) *

Nishogakusha University is a private university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japa ...

(Kyoto, 2012) *

Doshisha University , mottoeng = Truth shall make you free , tagline = , established = Founded 1875,Chartered 1920 , vision = , type = Private , affiliation = , calendar = , endowment = €1 ...

(Kyoto, 2013)

Awards and commendations

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, 1961 *

Kikuchi Kan Prize The honors achievement in all aspects of Japanese literary culture. It was named in honor of Kikuchi Kan. The prize is presented annually by the literary magazine ''Bungei Shunjū'' and the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Literature. Histor ...

(Kikuchi Kan Shō Society for the Advancement of Japanese Culture), 1962. * Van Ameringen Distinguished Book Award, 1967 * Kokusai Shuppan Bunka Shō Taishō, 1969 * Kokusai Shuppan Bunka Shō, 1971 * Yamagata Banto Prize (Yamagata Bantō Shō), 1983 * The Japan Foundation Award (Kokusai Kōryū Kikin Shō), 1983 *

Yomiuri Literary Prize The is a literary award in Japan. The prize was founded in 1949 by the Yomiuri Shinbun Company to help form a "strong cultural nation". The winner is awarded two million Japanese yen and an inkstone. Award categories For the first two years, ...

(Yomiuri Bungaku Shō), 1985 (Keene was the first non-Japanese to receive this prize, for a book of

literary criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

(''Travellers of a Hundred Ages'') in Japanese) * Award for Excellence (Graduate Faculties Alumni of Columbia University), 1985 * Nihon Bungaku Taishō, 1985 * Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University named in Keene's honour, 1986 * Tōkyō-to Bunka Shō, 1987 * NBCC (The National Book Critics Circle) Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement in Publishing, 1990 * The

Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize The is an award established by the city of Fukuoka and the Fukuoka City International Foundation (formerly The Yokatopia Foundation) to honor the outstanding work of individuals or organizations in preserving or creating Asian culture. There are ...

(Fukuoka Ajia Bunka Shō), 1991 * Nihon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) Hōsō Bunka Shō, 1993 * Inoue Yasushi Bunka Shō (Inoue Yasushi Kinen Bunka Zaidan), 1995 * The Distinguished Achievement Award (from The Tokyo American Club) (for the lifetime achievements and unique contribution to international relations), 1995 * Award of Honor (from The Japan Society of Northern California), 1996 *

Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...

, 1997 * Mainichi Shuppan Bunka Shō (The Mainichi Newspapers), 2002 * The

PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, named in honor of U.S. translator Ralph Manheim, is a literary award given every three years by PEN America (the U.S. chapter of International PEN) to a translator "whose career has demonstrated a comm ...

, 2003 * Ango Award (from

Niigata, Niigata is a city located in the northern part of Niigata Prefecture (). It is the capital and the most populous city of Niigata Prefecture, and one of the cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, located in the Chūbu region of Japan. I ...

), 2010

National honors and decorations

Decorations

( Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, Third Class, 1975) * JPN Kyokujitsu-sho 2Class BAR

( Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class, 1993) * JPN Bunka-kunsho blank BAR

(

(''Bunka kunshō''), 2008 "Donald Keene, 7 others win Order of Culture,"
''Yomiuri Shimbun.'' October 29, 2008. )

Honors

* Person of Cultural Merit (''Bunka Kōrōsha'') (Japanese Government), 2002 (Keene was the third non-Japanese person to be designated "an individual of distinguished cultural service" by the Japanese government) * Freedom of (''meiyo kumin'') Kita ward, Tokyo, 2006

Notes

References

External links

Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keene, Donald 1922 births 2019 deaths Military personnel from New York City Writers from New York City Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Harvard University alumni Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge American emigrants to Japan American Japanologists Japanese–English translators Japanese literature academics Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Naturalized citizens of Japan Former United States citizens American translators Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class Recipients of the Order of Culture Yukio Mishima 20th-century Japanese male writers 20th-century translators United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy officers James Madison High School (Brooklyn) alumni