Hideo Levy
{{short description|American-born Japanese language author (born 1950)}}
{{use dmy dates|date=June 2025}}
{{Distinguish|text=Ian Levy, the British politician}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Hideo Levy
| image =
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| birth_name = Ian Hideo Levy
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1950|11|29|df=y}}
| birth_place = Berkeley, California
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| occupation = Writer
| language = Japanese
| nationality = American
| ethnicity =
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| notableworks =
| awards = {{plainlist|
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}}
{{nihongo|Ian Hideo Levy|リービ 英雄|Rībi Hideo|born 29 November 1950}} is an American-born Japanese language author. Levy was born in California and educated in Taiwan, the US, and Japan. He is one of the first Americans to write modern literature in Japanese, and his work has won the Noma Literary New Face Prize and the Yomiuri Prize, among other literary prizes.
Biography
Levy was born in Berkeley, California on 29 November 1950 to a Polish-American mother and a Jewish father.{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-19-vw-857-story.html|title=Outsider Captures Soul of Japanese|work=Los Angeles Times|first=Teresa|last=Watanabe|date=November 19, 1992|access-date=September 26, 2018}} His father named him after a friend who was imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II.{{cite journal|title=Nihongo Institute Newsletter|date=March 1999|volume=3|url=http://www.nihoninst.jp/newsletter/newsletter%2003.pdf|access-date=2011-07-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223820/http://www.nihoninst.jp/newsletter/newsletter%2003.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}} Levy's father was a diplomat, and the family moved around between Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies, and later received his doctorate from the same school for studying the poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
While at Princeton, Levy studied the Man'yōshū. His English translation of the text was one of the finalists of the 1982 U.S. National Book Award in the Translation category.
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1982 "National Book Awards – 1982"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-10.
There was a "Translation" award from 1966 to 1983. He has referred to the Man'yōshū scholar Susumu Nakanishi as his mentor.{{cite speech |title=The World in Japanese |first=Hideo |last=Levy |author-link=Hideo Levy |location=Stanford University |date=February 11, 2010 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnNkwnx082w |access-date=18 February 2014}} After working as an assistant professor at Princeton, he moved to Stanford University and taught there. He later left and moved to Tokyo.{{cite web|title=Posts Tagged '"Ian Hideo Levy"'|url=http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/ian-hideo-levy/|access-date=31 July 2011}}
Levy gained attention in Japan as the first foreigner to win the Noma Literary Award for New Writers, which he received in 1992 for his work A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard. In 1996, his story Tiananmen was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. For his contributions to the introduction of Japanese literature to foreign readers, he was honored with a Japan Foundation Special Prize in 2007. In 2017, he won the Yomiuri Prize.{{cite news|url=https://mainichi.jp/articles/20170201/k00/00m/040/132000c|language=ja|title=読売文学賞 小説賞にリービ英雄「模範郷」|trans-title=Yomiuri Prize (Novel) goes to Hideo Levy for Mohankyo|work=Mainichi Shimbun|date=February 1, 2017|access-date=September 26, 2018}}
Recognition
- 1st Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for his English translation of Man'yōshū, 1979.
- 14th Noma Literary New Face Prize, 1992{{cite web|url=http://www.kodansha.co.jp/award/noma_n/51260.html|language=ja|title=野間文芸新人賞 過去受賞作|trans-title=Noma Literary New Face Prize Past Winning Works|publisher=Kodansha|access-date=September 26, 2018|archive-date=May 13, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190513102754/https://www.kodansha.co.jp/award/noma_n/51260.html|url-status=dead}}
- Japan Foundation Award, 2007[http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/about/index.html Japan Foundation], [http://www.jpf.go.jp/e/about/award/index.html Japan Foundation Award, 2007]
- 68th Yomiuri Prize, 2017{{cite news|url=https://info.yomiuri.co.jp/contest/clspgl/bungaku.html|language=ja|title=読売文学賞|trans-title=Yomiuri Prize for Literature|newspaper=Yomiuri Shimbun|access-date=September 26, 2018|archive-date=April 4, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404094519/https://info.yomiuri.co.jp/contest/clspgl/bungaku.html|url-status=dead}}
Works
= Novels =
- {{nihongo|A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard|『星条旗の聞こえない部屋』|Seijōki no Kikoenai Heya|Kodansha 1992 / Kodansha Bungei Bunko 2004; trans. Christopher D. Scott, Columbia University Press, 2011}}
- {{nihongo||『天安門』|Ten'anmon|"Tiananmen"; Kodansha 1996}}
- {{nihongo||『国民のうた』|Kokumin no Uta|"Song of the People"; Kodansha 1998}}
- {{nihongo||『ヘンリーたけし レウィツキーの夏の紀行』|Henrii Takeshi Rewuittsukii no Natsu no Kikō|"Henry Takeshi Levitsky's Summer Travel Journal"; Kodansha 2002}}
- {{nihongo||『千々にくだけて』|Chiji ni Kudakete|"Broken Into Thousands of Pieces"; Kodansha 2005 / Kodansha Bunko 2008}}
- {{nihongo||『仮の水』|Kari no Mizu|Kodansha 2008}}
- {{nihongo||『模範郷』|Mo Fan Xiang{{Cite web|url=https://ikyou-kokyou.jimdofree.com/|title=『異境の中の故郷』ー作家リービ英雄52年ぶりの台中再訪ー|website=『異境の中の故郷』ー作家リービ英雄52年ぶりの台中再訪ー|accessdate=Feb 22, 2025|language=Japanese}}|Shūeisha 2017}}
- {{nihongo||『天路』|Tenro|Kodansha 2021}}
= Literary criticism and essays =
- {{nihongo||『日本語の勝利』|Nihongo no Shōri|"The Victory of Japanese"; Kodansha 1992}}
- {{nihongo||『新宿の万葉集』|Shinjuku no Man'yōshū|"Shinjuku's Man'yōshū"; Asahi Shimbun 1996}}
- {{nihongo||『アイデンティティーズ』|Aidentitiizu|"Identities"; Kodansha 1997}}
- {{nihongo||『最後の国境への旅』|Saigo no Kokkyō e no Tabi|"Journey to the Final Border"; Chuou Koron Shinsha 2000}}
- {{nihongo||『日本語を書く部屋』|Nihongo o Kaku Heya|"The Room for Writing Japanese"; Iwanami Shoten 2001}}
- {{nihongo||『我的中国』|Wareteki Chūgoku|"My China"; Iwanami Shoten 2004}}
- {{nihongo||『英語でよむ万葉集』|Eigo de Yomu Man'yōshū|"Reading the Man'yōshū in English"; Iwanami Shinsho 2004}}
- {{nihongo||『越境の声』|Ekkyō no Koe|Iwanami Shoten 2007}}
- {{nihongo||『延安 革命聖地への旅』|En'an Kakumei Seichi e no Tabi|"Yan'an: Journey to a Sacred Place of the Revolution"; Kodansha 2008}}
- {{nihongo||『我的日本語 The World in Japanese』|Wareteki Nihongo: The World in Japanese|"My Japanese"; Chikuma Shobou, 2010}}
= Man'yōshū scholarship =
- Hitomaro and the Birth of Japanese Lyricism (Princeton University Press 1984)
- The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of the Man Yoshu, Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry (Princeton Library of Asian Translations) (Princeton University Press 1987)
- {{nihongo2|万葉恋歌}} Love Songs from the Man'yoshu (Kodansha International 2000)
- Man'yo Luster {{nihongo2|万葉集}} (Pie Books 2002)
= Translations =
- Otohiko Kaga's {{nihongo|Riding the East Wind: A Novel of War and Peace|錨のない船|Ikari no nai Fune|"Anchorless Ship"; Kodansha America 2002}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.booksfromjapan.jp/authors/item/329-hideo-levy Hideo Levy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701054326/http://www.booksfromjapan.jp/authors/item/329-hideo-levy |date=2016-07-01 }} at J'Lit Books from Japan {{in lang|en}}
- [http://www.jlpp.go.jp/en/works/03_20.html Synopsis of A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard] at JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) {{in lang|en}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20091013064201/http://www.jpf.go.jp/video/english/japanfoundation/index.html JF Video Square] Video of acceptance speech for Japan Foundation Special Prize.
- {{YouTube|DnNkwnx082w|The World in Japanese Literature}} Video of lecture given at Stanford University Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, February 11, 2010.
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy, Hideo Ian}}
Category:American Japanologists
Category:American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:Japanese–English translators
Category:Japanese-language writers
Category:National Book Award winners