Donald Keene is one of the greatest scholars of Japanese literature and has been highly influential in the establishment of Japanese studies in the West.
Now aged 87, the Professor Emeritus of Columbia University in New York has published around 25 books in English, comprising studies of Japanese literature and culture as well as translations of classical and modern works. He has also had some 30 books published in Japanese, some of which he also wrote in Japanese.
Keene has spent more than 50 years in Japan, apart from time spent teaching at Columbia University where, in 1986, the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture was established in his honor.