Kyodo World Service, August 27th, 2007
Edward G. Seidensticker, known for his English translation of
the classic ''Tale of Genji'' and translations of works by modern
Japanese authors such as Yasunari Kawabata, died at a Tokyo hospital
Sunday, a long-time friend said Monday. He was 86.
He had been hospitalized with a head injury suffered after
falling down in a street near his Tokyo home this spring. He died of
his injuries at 4:52 p.m., according to the friend.
A native of the U.S. state of Colorado, Seidensticker learned
Japanese in the U.S. Navy and took part in operations on Iwojima with
the U.S. Marines as a language expert during World War II.
After the war, he pursued Japanese studies at the graduate
school of Columbia University and arrived in Japan in 1948 as a State
Department staffer.
He later left the department and stayed on in Japan to study
Japanese literature at the graduate school of the University of
Tokyo. He returned to the United States in 1962 and was on the
faculty of Columbia from 1977. He was a professor emeritus of
Columbia.
Seidensticker produced translations of a number of modern
Japanese novels including Kawabata's ''Snow Country,'' Junichiro
Tanizaki's ''The Makioka Sisters,'' and Yukio Mishima's ''The Decay
of The Angel.''
He is also noted for producing a complete translation of ''The
Tale of Genji,'' an 11th century epic novel by Murasaki Shikibu, as
well as for paving the way for Kawabata to receive the Nobel Prize in
Literature in 1968.
After leaving Columbia, he spent time at his homes in Hawaii and
Tokyo.
He also authored books such as ''Low City, High City: Tokyo from
Edo to the Earthquake'' and a memoir in which he wrote about his
exchanges with Japanese literary giants such as Kawabata, Tanizaki
and Mishima.
He was decorated by the Japanese government in 1975 with The
Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon and given the
Kikuchi Kan Award for contributions to Japanese literature in 1977
for his translations of ''The Tale of Genji'' and other works.
