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.