J. Martin Holman
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James Martin Holman, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1957. He received a BA in Japanese from Brigham Young University and did graduate work in Japanese Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.
Holman lived in Japan for more than ten years as a missionary, graduate student, professor of Japanese literature, and resident director of two study centers: the Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) in Hikone and the Associated Kyoto Program Center (AKP) at Doshisha University in Kyoto. He was the first non-Japanese to train and perform as a traditional Bunraku puppeteer in Japan, making his stage debut in 1994 with the 170-year-old Tonda Traditional Bunraku Puppet Troupe in Shiga Prefecture.
Holman has also published many translations of modern Japanese and Korean literature, including The Old Capital (1987), Palm-of-the-Hand Stories (1988), and The Dancing Girl of Izu (1998), by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata; The Book of Masks (1989) and Shadows of Sound (1990), by Korean writer Hwang Sun-wŏn; and The House of Twilight by Korean author Yun Heung-gil. Holman has taught Japanese language, literature, and theatre and Korean literature at colleges and universities in Japan, the United States, and Canada.
He currently teaches Japanese Language and Literature at the University of Missouri - Columbia and directs the Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe.