Essays by Donald Keene

The great Japan scholar Donald Keene does not need an introduction to readers of this blog, as anyone even slightly interested in Japan is bound to have come across his many translations of Japanese literature, new ( for example, After the Banquet and Thirst for Love by Mishima) and traditional (Essays in Idleness, The Narrow Road to Oku), his massive history of Japanese literature (Seeds in the Heart, World within Walls and Dawn to the West) or his other books as Emperor of Japan: Meiji and his World, or Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul of Japan.

Donald Keene does not need an introduction to the Japanese either, as he is very popular here: all his books have been translated and he has also published essays in Japanese which have not appeared in English.

Last year, the Yomiuri Shinbun has published a series of autobiographical essays by Keene, dubbed "Chronicles of my Life in the Twentieth Century," which fortunately have also been published in English on the website of the English Yomiuri. They are still available there and provide interesting glimpses of Keene's relationship with Japan, during a long and very active life that he characterizes as "fantastically" lucky and "essentially happy."

Greek tragedies often end with the warning that one should call no man happy until he is dead, and this may apply to me too, but at present my pervading emotion is one of gratitude, to my friends in different places and, above all, to Japan. (from Coming to Terms with Old Age)

[Thanks to Frog in a Well]