John Nathan


John Nathan is an American translator, writer, scholar, filmmaker, and Japanologist. His translations from Japanese into English include the works of Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburō Ōe, Kōbō Abe, and Natsume Sōseki. Nathan is also an Emmy Award-winning producer, writer and director of many films about Japanese culture and society and American business. He is currently the Takashima Professor of Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Biography

Nathan was born in New York City and spent part of his childhood in Tucson, Arizona. He graduated from Harvard College, where he studied under Edwin O. Reischauer. Nathan became the first American to pass the entrance exams of the University of Tokyo and be admitted as a traditional student. He lived in Tokyo for eight years, and married a Japanese woman. Nathan later received a doctorate in Far Eastern languages from Harvard University. He became a professor of Japanese literature at Princeton University in the 1970s. He is currently the Takashima Professor of Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Nathan's works focus on Japanese culture, Japanese literature, Japanese cinema, the theory and practice of translation., and the sociology of business culture. Nathan first met Yukio Mishima in 1963. In 1965, at the age of 25, Nathan translated Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Impressed by Nathan's translation, Mishima requested Nathan sign on as his translator and help Mishima in his quest in being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nathan was more interested in translating the work of Kenzaburō Ōe. Nathan ultimately refused to translate Mishima 1964 novel, opting instead to translate Kenzaburō Ōe's A Personal Matter. Mishima, who was considered an "arch-rival" of Ōe, abruptly severed ties with Nathan afterwards. In 1974, Nathan authored Mishima: A Biography, a definitive biography of Yukio Mishima. In 1994, Kenzaburō Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and Nathan accompanied him to Stockholm.
Nathan left Princeton in the late 1970s to pursue filmmaking. He created three documentaries about the Japanese.
In 1999, Nathan published Sony: The Private Life, a biography of Sony Corporation. The book was the product of 115 interviews conducted by Nathan with current and past key executives of Sony. In 2004, he published Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose, a scholarly work which provides a historical context to contemporary Japan. In 2008, Nathan published his memoir, Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere. In 2013, Nathan published a translation of Natsume Sōseki's unfinished novel Light and Dark. In 2018, Nathan published a biography of Sōseki titled Sōseki: Modern Japan's Greatest Novelist.

Reception

Nathan was described by The Japan Times as "the one critic of Japanese literature that towers above the rest."

Works

Translations

Novels