Background
Rubin, Jay was born on November 15, 1941 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
linguist translator university professor author
Rubin, Jay was born on November 15, 1941 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States.
Rubin has a Doctor of Philosophy in Japanese literature from the University of Chicago.
He is most notable for being one of the main translators into English of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. He has also written a guide to Japanese, Making Sense of Japanese (original title Gone Fishin"), and a biographical literary analysis of Murakami. He taught at the University of Washington for eighteen years, and then moved on to Harvard University, which he left in 2008.
In his early research career he focused on the Meiji state censorship system.
More recently Rubin has concentrated his efforts on Murakami, and Noh drama. His most recent publications are Modern Japanese Writers (Scribners, 2001), and Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (Harvill, 2002.
Vintage, 2005). His translation of 18 stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa appeared as a Penguin Classics in 2006.
His debut novel, The Sun Gods, was released in May 2015 (Chinese Music Press) and explores the relationship between a Japanese mother, Mitsuko, and her adopted, American son, Billy, as they face American internment during World World War World War II Rubin also translated the "Thousand Years of Dreams" passages for use in the Japanese-produced Xbox 360 game Lost Odyssey.