Linda Nancy Andrew (August 17, 1947 – November 29, 1998) was the English-language translator of

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 Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese author Ryū Murakami's highly acclaimed novel, '' Almost Transparent Blue'', which had won the Akutagawa Prize in 1976. Born in Dallas, Texas, Andrew was the only child of Dr. Warren Andrew (1910–1982), who later chaired the Department of Anatomy at the Indiana University School of Medicine in

Indianapolis Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...

, and Nancy Valerie Miellmier Andrew (1914–1993), later a secretary with the Indiana State Anatomical Board. Her interest in Japanese language and culture was kindled when she traveled to Japan with her parents just before her thirteenth birthday in 1960. Graduating from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in 1965, she studied East Asian languages at Indiana University in Bloomington and Waseda University in Tokyo. After receiving an honors degree from Indiana in 1969, she began graduate study at the

Harvard Yenching Institute 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 high ...

, where her faculty adviser was

Edwin O. Reischauer Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (; October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990) was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and cul ...

, former United States Ambassador to Japan, and where she was an editor of '' Stone Lion Review'', published by the East Asian Graduate Students Colloquium. While doing research for her doctoral dissertation on the feminist movement in Japan, Andrew abandoned her academic studies to work as a translator for NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. Her translation of Murakami's surrealistic novel of post-war life in Japan was published in 1977.

References

*Andrew, Warren, ''One World of Science: Personal Visits to Men of Research in Many Lands'', Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas (1966), Chapter 13. {{DEFAULTSORT:Andrew, Nancy 1947 births 1998 deaths Japanese–English translators American Japanologists Indiana University Bloomington alumni Harvard University alumni Writers from Dallas Writers from Indianapolis 20th-century American translators American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers Women orientalists