Donald Keene

Early life

Donald Lawrence Keene was born in the Flatbush neighborhood of New York City's Brooklyn borough on June 18, 1922. His father was an international trade businessman while his mother stayed at home to raise Keene and his elder sister. In July 1931, amid the economic crisis of the Great Depression, a nine-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, disembarking at Cherbourg before they continued on to Paris by train. Keene met a girl around his age in Paris, but the language barrier made it difficult to talk with her, so he proceeded to sing Frère Jacques to her as it was the only thing he knew in French. These experiences instilled in him a great sense of curiosity for cultures abroad, as well as learning languages. In 1933, his elder sister died of an illness and his parents divorced.

Education and military service

Keene lived with his mother and attended James Madison High School, showing great academic achievement. He then enrolled at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor's degree 1942, studying under Mark Van Doren, Moses Hadas, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun. While there, he was obsessed with Arthur Waley's English translation of The Tale of Genji, and he became increasingly interested in Japanese culture after he met Ryūsaku Tsunoda, who became a mentor and key influence on his writings. Following his graduation, Keene enlisted in the United States Navy under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. A self-described pacifist, he was not enthusiastic about joining, especially after hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor.

While in the Navy, Keene successfully applied to the in Boulder, Colorado, and in Berkeley, California, where he learned Japanese. He served as an intelligence officer and in the Pacific region during World War II, where he translated for Japanese prisoners, some of whom remained his friends long after the war finished; he later recalled finding poignant diaries of dead Japanese soldiers, stained with their blood, and having his attempts to deliver the diaries to the soldiers' families thwarted by the Navy. Upon his discharge from the Navy, he returned to Columbia and earned a master's degree in 1947. He studied for a year at Harvard University before transferring to Cambridge University in England on the Henry Fellowship, where he earned a second master's degree and became a Fellow of Cambridge's Corpus Christi College from 1948 to 1954, as well as a lecturer from 1949 to 1955. In the interim, he earned a PhD from Columbia in 1949 and studied at Kyoto University in 1953. While staying at Cambridge, he met his idol Waley, who had sparked his initial interest in Asian culture.

Career

Keene went on to become a Japanologist who published about 25 English-language books on Japanese topics, including studies of Japanese literature and culture and translations of classical and modern Japanese literature. He 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.

Personal life

In 2008, Emperor Akihito awarded Keene the Order of Culture, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Japanese Imperial House; as of 2025, he remains the only non-Japanese person to receive the award.

In January 2011, at the age of 87, Keene was taken to a Japanese hospital after becoming gravely ill; concerned that he was dying, he instead asked himself what he would do if he recovered, and quickly realized that he would rather live out the rest of his life in Japan than return to the U.S. and his relocation following the earthquake was universally welcomed.

According to the Financial Times, which referred to Keene as a legendary figure in Japan, "The announcement made headline news. Japanese spoke, many with tears in their eyes, of the courage he had given them in their hour of need." He told The New York Times, "Many foreigners are leaving Japan. People have asked me why I should be choosing this moment to spend the rest of my life in Japan. [...] I decided to move there to voluntarily and gladly join the people in time of disaster, because I have more friends there than I have here, and most of my awards have come there. I want to show my appreciation to the Japanese people, and I could think of no other way than to say I'd be with them."

Upon settling in Japan, Keene adopted the legal name and acquired Japanese citizenship, which required him to relinquish his American citizenship as Japan does not permit multiple citizenship. Having long maintained a home in a suburb of Tokyo, he made it his primary home upon relocating. Uehara was 63 years old at the time.

Death

Keene died of cardiac arrest in Tokyo at the age of 96 on February 24, 2019.

Selected works

In an overview of writings by and about Keene, OCLC/WorldCat lists over 600 works in over 1,400 publications in 16 languages and over 39,000 library holdings.

Works in English

Works in Japanese

Translations

Editor

Honorary degrees

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)

Awards and commendations

• Guggenheim Fellowship, 1961
• 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

• [[File:JPN Kyokujitsu-sho 3Class BAR.svg|85px|ribbon bar]] (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, Third Class, 1975)
• [[File:JPN Kyokujitsu-sho 2Class BAR.svg|85px|ribbon bar]] (Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, Second Class, 1993)
• [[File:JPN Bunka-kunsho blank BAR.svg|85px|ribbon bar]] (Order of Culture (Bunka kunshō), 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

References

1. (1990). "The United States in Asia: A Historical Dictionary". Bloomsbury Academic.
2. Fackler, Martin. (November 2, 2012). "Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them". [[The New York Times]].
3. "年譜 {{!}} プロフィール {{!}} ドナルド・キーンについて {{!}} ドナルド・キーン・センター柏崎".
4. Keene, Donald. (2008). "Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan". Columbia University Press.
5. (2022-03-14). "Donald Keene's Japan (Pt. 1): 100 years since the birth of the late scholar". Mainichi Daily News.
6. "Sensei and Sensibility {{!}} Columbia College Today".
7. (2022-03-28). "Donald Keene's Japan (Pt.2): An inspiring encounter with 'The Tale of Genji'". Mainichi Daily News.
8. (2022-04-11). "Donald Keene's Japan (Pt.3): War and fate linked scholar with Japanese language". Mainichi Daily News.
9. Cary, Otis and Donald Keene. ''War-wasted Asia: Letters, 1945–46''. Kodansha International, 1975. {{ISBN. 9780870112577 p13
10. Donald Keene, [https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/files/Fifty%20years%20of%20Japanese.pdf 'Reminiscences of Cambridge'], in [[Richard Bowring]] (ed.), ''Fifty years of Japanese at Cambridge, 1948–98: A Chronicle with Reminiscences'' (Cambridge: Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, 1998), pp.16-7.
11. Donald Keene. [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/01/01/national/history/donald-keene-reflects-70-year-japan-experience/ "Donald Keene reflects on 70-year Japan experience"] ''Japan Times.'' January 1, 2015
12. Keene, Donald. (2008). "Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan". Columbia University Press.
13. [https://www.ft.com/content/9a0ebac8-00f5-11e1-8590-00144feabdc0 "Lunch with the FT: Donald Keene"], by David Pilling, ''[[Financial Times]]'', October 28, 2011. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20111030174558/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9a0ebac8-00f5-11e1-8590-00144feabdc0.html Archive link])
14. (2019-02-24). "U.S.-born scholar of Japanese literature Donald Keene dies at 96". Reuters.
15. (February 24, 2019). "Famed Japan scholar Donald Keene dies at 96". Kyodo News.
16. Kilgannon, Corey. (2011-04-26). "Columbia Professor's Retirement Is Big News in Japan".
17. https://www.keenecenter.org/Donald_Keene.html
18. Reiji Yoshida. [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/24/national/japanese-literature-scholar-donald-keene-dies-96/#.XHKBANJCeUk "Donald Keene, lauded scholar of Japanese literature, dies at 96"], ''Japan Times''. February 24, 2019
19. . (February 24, 2019). ["Japanese literature scholar Donald Keene dies at 96"](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/24/national/japanese-literature-scholar-donald-keene-dies-96/#.XHHxcudS-Co). *[[The Japan Times]]*.
20. "WorldCat Identities".
21. [https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0F16FC385B12718DDDAC0894DB405B828AF1D3&scp=3&sq=Donald+Keene+&st=p "Professor Gets Prize; Keene of Columbia Cited for Work in Japanese Letters,"] ''New York Times.'' March 5, 1962.
22. [http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081029TDY01304.htm "Donald Keene, 7 others win Order of Culture,"] ''Yomiuri Shimbun.'' October 29, 2008. {{dead link. (June 2016)