Scholar of Japan, Keene finds his life intertwined with it

TOKYO (AP) — So few teaching opportunities existed for a young Japan scholar in late 1940s America that a professor suggested he teach Greek instead.

People didn't speak of it at the time, they all said there's nothing much to read and that sort of thing, but in retrospect we can say this was one of the great periods of Japanese literature.

"I gradually thought of Japan as a place where I would like to live, and also where I would like to die," he says at his Tokyo apartment, which overlooks a leafy public garden that was the estate of a wealthy 19th-century businessman.

Though his memory isn't what it once was, the longtime Columbia University professor remains active.

I became a famous person in a sense.

[...] the Japanese were extremely grateful.

The two-volume translation by Englishman Arthur Waley seemed a bargain at 49 cents, Keene wrote in a 2008 memoir.

"If one is a translator of Japanese, one should take the most famous work and try it, and show what you can do with it," he says.