Jay Rubin
One Jay Rubin is a major translator into English of the works of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. He also wrote a guide to Japanese, Making Sense of Japanese (original title Gone Fishin' ), and a biographical literary analysis of Murakami, Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words.
This Jay Rubin holds his Ph.D. in Japanese literature from the University of Chicago. Before becoming a professor at Harvard, he taught at the University of Washington for eighteen years. In his early research career he focused on the Meiji state censorship system. More recently Professor Rubin has concentrated his efforts on the writers Murakami Haruki and Natsume Soseki, whose works he has also translated, 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 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke appeared as a Penguin Classic in 2006.
Another Jay Rubin teaches writing at The College of Alameda and manages Alehouse Press, an independent literary press based in San Francisco that publishes Alehouse, an annual review of poetry, prose, and book reviews.