Donald Keene

Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature.^{[1] [2]} 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, he retired from Columbia, moved to Japan permanently, and acquired citizenship under the name Kīn Donarudo (キーン ドナルド) which is essentially his birth name in the Japanese name order. ^[3] This was also his poetic pen name (雅号 , gagō) and occasional nickname, spelled in the ateji form 鬼怒鳴門.^{[4] [a]}

Donald Lawrence Keene was born on June 18, 1922 in Flatbush, Brooklyn. His father was an international trade businessman while his stay-at-home mother raised both Keene and his elder sister. When Keene was seven years old, the Great Depression was beginning to gain momentum in the United States, which subsequently had a negative effect on his family. In July 1931, amid the economic crisis, a 9-year-old Keene begged his father to allow him to accompany him on a business trip to Europe, to which his father agreed. He and his father boarded a United States Lines ship sailing to Normandy in France disembarking at Cherbourg. By train he and his father went to Paris. In Paris, Keene met a girl around the same age, but had a hard time talking to her due to a language barrier, but proceeded to sing to her Frère Jacques which was the only song he knew in French.^[5] These experiences instilled in him great sense of curiosity for cultures abroad, as well as learning languages.

In 1933, two years after his visit to France, Keene's elder sister died of illness which was followed by his parents divorce. Keene attended the James Madison High School, while living with his mother, where he showed great academic achievement.^[6] He than enrolled at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor's degree 1942,^[7] studying under Mark Van Doren, Moses Hadas, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun. While at Columbia he was obsessed with Arthur Waley's English translation of The Tale of Genji and became increasingly interested in Japanese culture after he met Ryusaku Tsunoda, an individual who Keene cites as a mentor and key influence in his writings.^{[8] [9]} Following his graduation, Keene was enlisted in the United States Navy under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, a pacifist at heart, Keene was not enthusatic about joining, especially after hearing about the Japanese-led Attack on Pearl Harbor.^[10]

While in the Navy, Keene applied to and was accepted into the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School  [ja] in Boulder, Colorado and in Berkeley, California,^[11] where he learned Japanese, and served as an intelligence officer and in the Pacific region during World War II.^{[3] [11]} Upon his discharge from the Navy, he returned to Columbia where he earned a master's degree in 1947. Keene studied for a year at Harvard University before transferring to Cambridge University 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.^[12] In the interim, in 1953,^[13] he also studied at Kyoto University, and earned a PhD from Columbia in 1949. While staying at Cambridge, Keene went to meet Arthur Waley 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.^[14]

Keene was a Japanologist 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.^[15] 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 by the Japanese government in 2008, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese Imperial Family in the country, becoming the first non-Japanese to receive the award.^[16] 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 Kīn Donarudo (キーン ドナルド). This required him to relinquish his American citizenship, as Japan does not permit dual citizenship.^[3]

Keene was well known and respected in Japan^[17] and his relocation there following the earthquake was widely lauded.^[15]

In 2013 Keene adopted shamisen player Seiki Uehara as a son.^[18] Keene was not married.

Keene died of cardiac arrest in Tokyo on February 24, 2019, aged 96.^[19]

In an overview of writings by and about Keene, OCLC/WorldCat lists roughly 600+ works in 1,400+ publications in 16 languages and 39,000+ library holdings.^[20]

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• 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 University Press, June 1, 1961)

Includes critical commentary

• Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko (Columbia University Press, June 1, 1967)
• Mishima Yukio, 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)
• Mishima Yukio, 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.
• Dazai Osamu, 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, 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)
• Miyata Masayuki (illustrations), Donald Keene (essay), H. Mack Horton [En 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)

• 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)

Keene was awarded various honorary doctorates, from:

• University of Cambridge (1978)
• St. Andrews Presbyterian College (North Carolina, 1990)
• Middlebury College (Vermont, 1995)
• Columbia University (New York, 1997)
• Tohoku University (Sendai, 1997)
• Waseda University (Tokyo, 1998)
• Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (Tokyo, 1999)
• Keiwa College (Niigata, 2000)
• Kyoto Sangyo University (Kyoto, 2002)
• Kyorin University (Tokyo, 2007)
• Toyo University (Tokyo, 2011)
• Japan Women's University (Tokyo, 2012)
• Nishogakusha University (Kyoto, 2012)
• Doshisha University (Kyoto, 2013)

• Guggenheim Fellowship, 1961
• Kikuchi Kan Prize (Kikuchi Kan Shō Society for the Advancement of Japanese Culture), 1962.^[21]
• 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
• Ango Award (from Niigata, Niigata), 2010

• ribbon bar (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, Third Class, 1975)
• ribbon bar (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class, 1993)
• ribbon bar (Order of Culture (Bunka kunshō), 2008^[22] )

• 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

• Media related to Donald Keene at Wikimedia Commons
• Wikisource logo Works by or about Donald Keene at Wikisource
• Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture

• 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
• Scholars of Japanese literature
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Naturalized citizens of Japan
• Former United States citizens
• 20th-century American translators
• Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class
• Recipients of the Order of Culture
• Recipients of the Fukuoka Prize
• 20th-century Japanese male writers
• United States Navy personnel of World War II
• United States Navy officers
• James Madison High School (Brooklyn) alumni

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