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The Japan News Toshiyuki Ohto speaks about Donald Keene and Karuizawa in Kita Ward, Tokyo on Sunday.
By Futoshi Mori / Japan News Senior Writer
13:28 JST, February 24, 2025
Japan scholar Donald Keene’s devotion to the famous summer resort of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, was featured in a lecture event held in Kita Ward, Tokyo, on Sunday, the day before the sixth anniversary of his death.
Keene spent almost every summer in Karuizawa, where he owned a small cottage, for over half a century. Toshiyuki Ohto, the director of the Literary Museum of Karuizawa, spoke about how deeply involved Keene was with the area while displaying many photographs on a screen.
Courtesy of the Donald Keene Memorial Foundation Donald Keene smiles at his Karuizawa cottage in September 2017.
“In 1964, Mr. Keene came to see the land with Mr. Michio Nagai. The next day, he asked a local architect to build a cottage and then left for New York,” Ohto said on the 14th floor of Hokutopia to a packed audience of around 100 people.
“When he returned to Japan the following year in 1965, the cottage had already been built, and he spent almost every summer in Karuizawa from then on. His last summer was in 2017, and he passed away in Tokyo at the age of 96 about one and a half years later.”
Michio Nagai, who later served as education minister, met Keene when he first stayed in Japan in 1953 and was living in the same lodging house as Keene in Kyoto. They became lifelong friends, and Keene’s small cottage — just 33 square meters — was near Nagai’s summer house in Karuizawa.
The Japan News Donald Keene, left, and his long-time friend Michio Nagai, photographed around 1960, are projected onto the screen at the venue.
Keene had visited Nagai’s summer house many times before building his own, and came to love Karuizawa, which was cool even in summer, only a moderate distance from Tokyo and surrounded by forest and quiet.
According to Ohto, Keene first visited Karuizawa about 10 years before he built his cottage. He had arranged to meet Nagai in Karuizawa but got the date wrong and arrived a day early. Nagai was not there yet, so Keene looked for a hotel, but unfortunately, everything was booked due to a national Boy Scout convention being held.
When Keene told the owner of a Chinese restaurant where he was eating about his predicament, the owner kindly offered to let him stay at his house.
“From what I’ve been able to find out, this Boy Scouts convention was held in Karuizawa from August 3 to 7, 1956. It seems that about 13,000 people gathered for the first Japan national jamboree,” Ohto said.
Exchanges with writers
Keene first stayed at the cottage he had built in the summer of 1965. It rained day after day, and Keene did not meet anyone, instead immersing himself in the translation of “Tsurezuregusa” (“Essays in Idleness”). Keene felt like he had become the author, Kenko, and even though it was a translation, he felt as if he had been writing it on his own in English from the beginning.
For Keene, Karuizawa was also a place where he could interact with many writers. He left behind this statement in Japanese: “Japanese writers such as Yasunari Kawabata and university professors mostly gather in Karuizawa. In Tokyo, they’re all terribly busy people, but in Karuizawa, I can enjoy their company and it’s very convenient. On top of that, it’s quiet and perfect for studying.”
At the lecture, Ohto introduced writers who had a summer house in Karuizawa and a connection with Keene. In addition to Kawabata, he mentioned such great writers as Kobo Abe, Takeo Arishima, Yaeko Nogami, Hakucho Masamune, Saisei Muro and Tatsuo Hori.
The Japan News The venue is packed with a full audience.
Ohto himself first met Keene about 40 years ago. He received a phone call from a publishing company’s editor saying, “I’m bringing Mr. Keene over,” and he met them at the Literary Museum of Karuizawa.
After that Keene often visited the museum, and his last visit was in 2013 when the Shusaku Endo Exhibition was being held. In 2022, after Keene’s death, Ohto organized an exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Keene’s birth, which was a great success.
Keene passed away in February 2019. The previous summer, he had repeatedly said that he wanted to go to Karuizawa, but he was unable to do so. Speaking at the lecture event, his adopted son Seiki said: “I discussed it with my father’s doctor many times, but I decided to take no risks. Now, I feel that I should’ve taken him there, even if it was just for a short time.”
