Personal Journeys Across The Borders Of Language

Born in California in 1950, Levy Hideo is the first Westerner to write critically acclaimed fiction in Japanese. His relationship with the Japanese language was sparked by his first visit to Japan in 1967, during an era of political upheaval. He went on to complete a Ph.D. in Japanese literature at Princeton and served as Associate Professor of Japanese at Stanford until 1989, when he left the U.S. to pursue a career as a Japanese-language novelist.

Levy’s debut novel was recently translated into English as A Room Where the Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard.  With the 1996 publication of Tienanmen – hailed by Japanese literary critics as the first work of Japanese literature since 1949 to describe mainland China in a real and compelling way – he crossed yet another linguistic border.  

His talk will offer rare insights into literature and language from the perspective of an American who has repeatedly crossed not only the East-West but also the Japan-China borders.