Mitsuyasu Maeno Mitsuyasu Maeno Mitsuyasu Maeno was born Shimoichiro Maeno in about 1947. He attended classes in acting at the University of California in 1967. Maeno was married twice, and both marriages ended in divorce. His troubled personal life also included a suicide attempt. According to his father, Maeno came under the influence of the right-wing and ultra-nationalistic philosophies of the writer Yukio Mishima. In November 1970, Mishima had attempted to incite the Self-Defense Forces to overthrow the 1947 Constitution of Japan. When his efforts to restore Japan to a wartime samurai ethic failed, Mishima committed ritual suicide. In contrast to the
John Nathan of Tokyo, he spent many years living and studying in Japan. He is the author of a definitive biography of novelist Yukio Mishima and he has also translated novels by Mishima and by Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe. When Ōe received the Nobel Prize in 1994, Nathan accompanied him to Stockholm. Nathan was described by The Japan Times as "the one critic of Japanese literature that towers above the rest." John Nathan John Nathan (born 1940) is the translator of Japanese works written by celebrated authors such as Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburō Ōe. Nathan is also an Emmy-award winning producer, writer