September 21, 2007

Remembering Ed Seidensticker, Master Translator

By ANTHONY H. CHAMBERS

The last time I saw Edward G. Seidensticker, the master translator and one of the most influential Japanologists of the 20th century, he and I dined in a three-story wooden shop in Tokyo, a rare survivor of the 1945 U.S. firebombing of the city. It was a little over a year ago, and we reminisced about our days together at Stanford University and the University of Michigan — where I followed him to complete my Ph.D. — his colleagues, and my fellow students of Japanese