Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. 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 "Donald Keene" in the Japanese name order (キーン ドナルド). This was also his poetic pen name (雅号) and occasional nickname, spelled in the ateji form 鬼怒鳴門.

Early life and education

Keene was born in 1922 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York City and attended James Madison High School. He received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1942 and studied under Mark Van Doren, Moses Hadas, Lionel Trilling, and Jacques Barzun. He then studied the Japanese language at the United States 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. 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. In the interim, in 1953, he also studied at Kyoto University, and earned a PhD from Columbia in 1949. Keene credits Ryūsaku Tsunoda as a mentor during this period. 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.

Career

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. 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 Imperial Family in the country, becoming the first non-Japanese to receive the award. 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. Keene was well known and respected in Japan and his relocation there following the earthquake was widely lauded.

Personal life

In 2013 Keene adopted shamisen player Seiki Uehara as a son. Keene was not married. Keene died of cardiac arrest in Tokyo on February 24, 2019, aged 96.

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.

Works in English

Works in Japanese

Translations

Includes critical commentary

Editor

Honorary degrees

Keene was awarded various honorary doctorates, from:

Awards and commendations

National honors and decorations

Decorations

Honors