Edward Seidensticker
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Edward George Seidensticker (born February 11, 1921, in Castle Rock, Colorado) is a noted scholar and translator of Japanese literature, particularly known for his accurate English version of The Tale of Genji (1976) and for his landmark translations of Yasunari Kawabata, which led to Kawabata's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968. Seidensticker received the National Book Award for Translation in 1971 for his translation of Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain. He also translated The Decay of the Angel, the last volume of Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and several of Mishima's stories. Seidensticker translated Junichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters and Some Prefer Nettles and authored important criticism on Tanizaki's place in 20th century Japanese literature.
He has also written widely on Japan, including a two-volume history of Tokyo, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake and Tokyo Rising: The City Since the Great Earthquake. He taught at Stanford, the University of Michigan, and Columbia until his retirement in 1985. He divides his time between Honolulu and Tokyo.
A biography and bibliography are included in New Leaves: Studies and Translations of Japanese Literature in Honor of Edward Seidensticker (1993).
