Ivan Ira Esme Morris was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and teacher

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

 in the field of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Studies.

Ivan Morris was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, of mixed American and Swedish parentage, to Ira Victor Morris and Edita Morris

Edita Morris

Edith Dagmar Emilia Morris, born Toll was a Swedish-American writer and political activist.-Biography:...

. He studied at Gordonstoun

Gordonstoun

Gordonstoun School is a co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils in Moray in North East Scotland. Named after the estate originally owned by Sir Robert Gordon in the 1600s, the school now uses this estate as its campus...

, before graduating from Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

. He began his study of Japanese language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 and culture at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, where he received a BA. He received a doctorate at the School of Oriental and African Studies

School of Oriental and African Studies

The School of Oriental and African Studies is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London...

 in London. He wrote widely on modern and ancient Japan and translated numerous classical and modern literary works. Ivan Morris was one of the first interpreters sent into Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 after the explosion of the bomb

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...

.

Dr Morris served on the faculty of Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 from 1960 to 1973 and was chairman of Columbia's Department of East Asian languages and Cultures from 1966 to 1969. In 1966 he was elected a Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

. He was one of the founders of Amnesty International USA

Amnesty International USA

Amnesty International USA is one of many country sections that make up Amnesty International worldwide.Amnesty International is an organization of more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, with complete independence from government, corporate or national...

 and was the first chair of its Board of Directors from 1973 to 1976. He was a friend of Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima

was the pen name of , a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor and film director, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku after a failed coup d'état...

; he wrote The Nobility of Failure partially to place the circumstances surrounding Mishima's death in historical context. The book was dedicated to Mishima's memory.

Ivan Morris died of cancer in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, on 19 July 1976. He was, in the estimation of many colleagues, the most versatile Japanologist of his generation.

Works

• Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan: A Study of Postwar Trends, Oxford University Press, 1960.
• The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan, Alfred A. Knopf 1964
• Dictionary of Selected Forms in Classical Japanese Literature Columbia University Press, 1966
• The Tale of Genji Scroll, Kodansha, 1971.
• The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975

Translations

• Life of an Amorous Woman by Ihara Saikaku
  Ihara Saikaku
  was a Japanese poet and creator of the "floating world" genre of Japanese prose .-Biography:Born the son of the wealthy merchant Hirayama Tōgo in Osaka, he first studied haikai poetry under Matsunaga Teitoku, and later studied under Nishiyama Sōin of the Danrin School of poetry, which emphasized...
  
  , Unesco/New Directions Books 1963
• The Pillow Book
  The Pillow Book
  is a book of observations and musings recorded by Sei Shōnagon during her time as court lady to Empress Consort Teishi during the 990s and early 11th century in Heian Japan. The book was completed in the year 1002....
  
   of Sei Shōnagon
  Sei Shonagon
  Sei Shōnagon , was a Japanese author and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Pillow Book .-Name:...
  
  , Oxford University Press, 1967
• As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams (Sarashina Nikki
  Sarashina Nikki
  The is a memoir written by Lady Sarashina , a lady-in-waiting of Heian-period Japan. Her work stands out for its descriptions of her travels and pilgrimages and is unique in the literature of the period, as well as one of the first in the genre of travel writing...
  
  ), The Dial Press 1971.
• The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
  The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
  The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is a novel by the Japanese author Yukio Mishima. It was published in 1956 and translated into English by Ivan Morris in 1959.-Plot introduction:...
  
  , by Yukio Mishima. Knopf, 1959
• The Journey, by Jiro Osaragi
  Jiro Osaragi
  was the pen-name of a popular Japanese writer in Shōwa period Japan, known primarily for his historical fiction novels, which appeared serialized in newspapers and magazines. His real name was .-Early life:Osaragi Jirō was born in Yokohama...
  
  , Charles E. Tuttle, 1967
• Fires on the Plain
  Fires on the Plain
  Fires on the Plain is a Yomiuri Prize-winning novel by Ooka Shohei, published in 1951. It describes the experiences of a soldier in the routed Imperial Japanese Army on the Philippines in the final days of World War II....
  
  , by Shohei Ooka, Martin Secker & Warburg 1957

Works edited

• Modern Japanese Stories, Charles E. Tuttle, 1962
• Masao Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, Oxford University Press 1963
• Japan, 1931–45: Militarism, Fascism, Japanism?, Heath, 1963
• The Pillow-Book Puzzles, Bodley Head, 1969
• Madly Singing in the Mountains: an Appreciation and Anthology of Arthur Waley
  Arthur Waley
  Arthur David Waley CH, CBE was an English orientalist and sinologist.-Life:Waley was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England, as Arthur David Schloss, son of the economist David Frederick Schloss...
  
  , Walker, 1970