Donald Keene

Donald Keene in his Tokyo home in 2002.

Donald Lawrence Keene (born June 18, 1922 in New York City) is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Keene retired from Columbia and moved to Japan where he became a citizen with the intention of living out the remainder of his life in his adopted country.^[1] Keene is well known and respected in Japan and his move there in the aftermath of the earthquake crises was widely lauded.^[2] Keene gave a lecture in Sendai in October 2011.^[3]

Keene has 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 the standard work.^[2] Keene has also published about 30 books in Japanese (some translated from English).

Keene is the president of the Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture.

Education

Keene received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1942. He studied Japanese language at the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado and in California, and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific region during World War II. Upon his discharge from the Navy, he returned to Columbia where he earned a master's degree in 1947.

He studied for a year at Harvard University before transferring to Cambridge where he earned a second masters, after which he stayed at Cambridge as a Lecturer from 1949-1955. In the interim, he also studied at Kyoto University, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1951. Keene credits Tsunoda Ryūsaku as a mentor during this period.

Publications

Translations

• Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance (Taylor's Foreign Pr, 1951)
• Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human (New Directions, 1958)
• Chikamatsu Monzaemon, The Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1961)
• Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1967)
• Mishima Yukio, Five Modern No Plays - Including: Madame de Sade (Tuttle, 1967)
• Chushingura: The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, a Puppet Play (Columbia Univ Pr, April 1, 1971)
• Mishima Yukio, After the Banquet (Random House Inc, January 1, 1973)
• Dazai Osamu, The Setting Sun (Tuttle, 1981)
• Abe Kobo, Three Plays (Columbia Univ Pr, February 1, 1997)
• Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1997)
• Kawabata Yasunari, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Kodansha Amer Inc, September 1, 1998)
• Yamamoto Yuzo, One Hundred Sacks of Rice: A Stage Play (Nagaoka City Kome Hyappyo Foundation, 1998)
• Donald Keene & Oda Makoto, The Breaking Jewel, Keene, Donald (trans) (Columbia Univ Pr, March 1, 2003)

Editor

• Anthology of Japanese Literature from the Earliest Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Grove Pr, March 1, 1960)
• 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)

Works in English

• The Battles of Coxinga: Chikamatsu's Puppet Play, Its Background and Importance (Taylor's Foreign Pr, 1951)
• The Japanese Discovery of Europe: Honda Toshiaki and other discoverers 1720-1952 (Routledge and K. Paul, 1952)
• Japanese Literature an Introduction for Western Readers (Grove Pr, June 1, 1955)
• Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology (Grove Pr, June 1, 1956)
• Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, January 1, 1961)
• Four Major Plays of Chikamatsu (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1961)
• Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720-1830 (Stanford Univ Pr, June 1, 1969)
• Twenty Plays of the No Theatre (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1970)
• World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867 (Henry Holt & Co, October 1, 1976) -(Second book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• Some Japanese Portraits (Kodansha Amer Inc, March 1, 1979)
• Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era (Henry Holt & Co, September 1, 1987)
  • Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era; Poetry, Drama, Criticism (Holt Rinehart & Winston, April 1, 1984) -(Fourth book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
  • Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era; Fiction (Holt Rinehart & Winston, April 1, 1984) -(Third book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• The Pleasures of Japanese Literature (Columbia Univ Pr, October 1, 1988; ISBN 0-231-06736-4)
• Donald Keene with Herbert E. Plutschow, Introducing Kyoto (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1989)
• Travelers of a Hundred Ages: The Japanese As Revealed Through 1,000 Years of Diaries (Diane Pub Co, June 1, 1989)
• Modern Japanese Novels and the West (Umi Research Pr, July 1, 1989)
• No and Bunraku: Two Forms of Japanese Theatre (Columbia Univ Pr, December 1, 1990)
• Appreciations of Japanese Culture (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1991)
• Donald Keene with Ooka Makoto, The Colors of Poetry: Essays in Classic Japanese Verse (Katydid Books, May 1, 1991)
• Travelers of a Hundred Ages (Henry Holt & Co, August 1, 1992)
• Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century (Henry Holt & Co, June 1, 1993) -(First book in his "A History of Japanese Literature" series)
• On Familiar Terms: A Journey Across Cultures (Kodansha Amer Inc, January 1, 1994)
• Modern Japanese Diaries: The Japanese at Home and Abroad As Revealed Through Their Diaries (Henry Holt & Co, March 1, 1995)
• The Blue-Eyed Tarokaja: A Donald Keene Anthology (Columbia Univ Pr, June 1, 1996
• On Familiar Terms: To Japan and Back, a Lifetime Across Cultures (Kodansha Amer Inc, April 1, 1996)
• Donald Keene with Anne Nishimura & Frederic A. Sharf, Japan at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Woodblock Prints from the Meija Era, 1868-1912 (Museum of Fine Arts Boston, May 1, 2001)
• Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600 compiled by Donalde Keen, Wm. Theodore De Bary, George Tanabe and Paul Varley (Columbia Univ Pr, May 1, 2001)
• Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912 (Columbia Univ Pr, April 1, 2002)
• Donald Keene with Lee Bruschke-Johnson & Ann Yonemura, Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints from the Anne Van Biema Collection (Univ of Washington Pr, September 1, 2002)
• Five Modern Japanese Novelists (Columbia Univ Pr, December 1, 2002)
• Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan (Columbia Univ Pr, November 1, 2003)
• Frog In The Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841 (Asia Perspectives),(Columbia Univ. Press, 2006)
• Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan. (Columbia Univ. Press, 2008)
• So Lovely A Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers (Columbia Univ. Press, 2010)

Honorary degrees

Keene has been awarded nine honorary doctorates, from:

• Kyoto Sangyo University (Kyoto, 2002)
• Keiwa Gakuen College (Niigata, 2000)
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Tokyo, 1999)
• Waseda University (Tokyo, 1998)
• Tohoku University (Sendai, 1997)
• Columbia University (New York, 1997)
• Middlebury College (Vermont, 1995)
• St. Andrews Presbyterian College (North Carolina, 1990)
• University of Cambridge (1978)

Awards and commendations

• Kikuchi Kan Prize (Kikuchi Kan Shō Society for the Advancement of Japanese Culture), 1962.^[4]
• 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 (Yomiuri Bungaku Shō), 1985 (Keene was the first non-Japanese to receive this prize, for a book of literary criticism (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 (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, 1997
• Mainichi Shuppan Bunka Shō (The Mainichi Newspapers), 2002
• The PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation, 2003

National honors and decorations

Decorations

• (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, Third Class, 1975)
• (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class, 1993)
• Order of Culture (Bunka kunshō), 2008.^[5]

Honors

• Person of Cultural Merit (Bunka Kōrōsha) (Japanese Government), 2002 (Keene is the third non-Japanese person to be designated "an individual of distinguished cultural service" by the Japanese government)

Notes

1. ^ Donald Keene to become Japanese citizen on NHK World
2. ^ ^{a b} "Lunch with the FT: Donald Keene", by David Pilling, Financial Times, 28 Oct 2011. (Archive link)
3. ^ Japan scholar Keene in Sendai, on Kyodo News
4. ^ "Professor Gets Prize; Keene of Columbia Cited for Work in Japanese Letters," New York Times. March 5, 1962.
5. ^ "Donald Keene, 7 others win Order of Culture," Yomiuri Shimbun. October 29, 2008.^{[dead link]}

See also

• Japanese literature

External links

• Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
• "Chronicles of My Life"

Persondata
Name	Keene, Donald
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Date of birth	June 6, 1922
Place of birth
Date of death
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