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Donald Lawrence Keene (born June 18, 1922), also known as 鬼怒鳴門 (キーン・ドナルド, Kiin Donarudo), is an American-born Japanese scholar, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature and culture. Keene is 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 there.

Education

Keene received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1942. He studied the Japanese language at the U.S. Navy Japanese Language School in Boulder, Colorado and in Berkeley, California, and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific region during World War II. Upon his discharge from the US 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 master's and became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1948-1954, and a University Lecturer from 1949-1955. In the interim, he also studied at Kyoto University, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1951. Keene credits Ryūsaku Tsunoda as a mentor during this period.

Career

Keene is a Japanologist who 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. Keene has also published about 30 books in Japanese (some translated from English). He is the president of the Donald Keene Foundation for Japanese Culture.

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 his Japanese citizenship, adopting the legal name キーン・ドナルド . This required him to relinquish his American citizenship, as Japan does not permit dual citizenship. At a press conference shortly afterward, Donald Keene mischievously revealed a business-card reading 鬼怒鳴門, Chinese characters reading similar to 'Donald Keene'.

Keene is well known and respected in Japan and his move there in the aftermath of the earthquake crisis was widely lauded. Keene gave a lecture in Sendai in October 2011.

Selected works

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.

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Works in English

Works in Japanese

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)

Includes critical commentary

• Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko (Columbia Univ Pr, 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 Univ Pr, 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 Univ 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 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)
• Miyata Masayuki (illustrations), Donald Keene (essay), H. Mack Horton , 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 Univ Pr, 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)

Honorary degrees

Keene has been 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)
• Keio University (Tokyo, 2000)
• 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 (Tokyo, 2013)

Awards and commendations

• Kikuchi Kan Prize (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 (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

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)

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)
• Freedom of (meiyo kumin) Kita ward, Tokyo, 2006

Notes

1. Glossed as 「鬼怒（キーン・ド）鳴門（ナルド）」(kēn do/narudo), 鬼怒 is usually pronounced kinu, as in Kinugawa River, and 鳴門 as naruto, as in the Naruto Strait, which are both well-known place names, yielding the reading kinu naturo. A further twist is that 怒 can also be read as do, corresponding to the 'Do' in 'Donald'.

1. "Donald Keene obtains Japanese citizenship; shows off 鬼怒鳴門 as his name," Japan Today. March 9, 2001; retrieved 2012-11-18.
2. "〈口ずさむとき〉344 伊藤幸子 キーンさんの著作集" (in Japanese). Morioka Times. July 31, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
3. "ドナルド・キーンさん改め「鬼怒鳴門」 「日本信じる、伝えたい」" (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun. March 16, 2012. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
4. ^ Fackler, Martin (2012-11-02). "Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
5. Cary, Otis and Donald Keene. War-wasted Asia: letters, 1945-46. Kodansha International, 1975. ISBN 9780870112577 p13
6. Arita, Eriko. "Keene: A life lived true to the words," Japan Times. September 6, 2009; retrieved 2012-11-18.
7. ^ "Lunch with the FT: Donald Keene", by David Pilling, Financial Times, 28 Oct 2011. (Archive link)
8. 「待っていた知らせ」　日本国籍取得のキーン氏　漢字表記は「鬼怒（キーン・ド）鳴門（ナルド）」」Sankei Shimbun, 2012-03-08
9. Japan scholar Keene in Sendai, on Kyodo News
10. WorldCat Identities: Keene, Donald; retrieved 2012-11-1.
11. "Professor Gets Prize; Keene of Columbia Cited for Work in Japanese Letters," New York Times. March 5, 1962.
12. "Donald Keene, 7 others win Order of Culture," Yomiuri Shimbun. October 29, 2008.

External links

• Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture
• "Chronicles of My Life"
• Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them (New York Times, November 2, 2012)

Template:Persondata

• 1922 births
• Living people
• Columbia University alumni
• Columbia University faculty
• Harvard University alumni
• American Japanologists
• Japanese–English translators
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Naturalized citizens of Japan
• People who lost United States citizenship
• American translators
• Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class
• Recipients of the Order of Culture
• Yukio Mishima
• Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize winners