James Martin Holman Jr. (born September 10, 1957, in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the List of cities in Kentucky, most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeastern United States, Southeast, and the list of United States cities by population, 27th-most-populous city ...

) is a literary translator, professor, puppeteer, and puppet theater director. He did his graduate work in Japanese literature at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. Holman lived in Japan for more than 14 years as a missionary, graduate student, professor of Japanese literature, and resident director of two study centers: the Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) in

Hikone is a city located in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 111,958 in 49,066 households and a population density of 570 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Hikone is located in central Shig ...

and the Associated Kyoto Program Center (AKP) at

Doshisha University , also referred to as , is a private university in Kyoto, Japan. Established in 1875, it is one of Japan's oldest private institutions of higher learning, and has approximately 30,000 students enrolled on four campuses in Kyoto. It is one of Japa ...

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

. He was the first non-Japanese to train and perform in Japan as a traditional puppeteer in the style of puppetry commonly known as

Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in the beginning of the 17th century, which is still performed in the modern day. Three kinds of performers take part in a performance: the or (puppeteers), the (chanters) ...

or ''ningyō jōruri'', making his stage debut in 1994 with the 170-year-old Tonda Traditional Bunraku Puppet Troupe in

Shiga Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,398,972 as of 1 February 2025 and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to th ...

. He is the founding director of the

Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe {{Short description, American puppet troupe Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe (known since 2011 as "Bunraku Bay Puppet Theater") is an American puppet troupe that performs the traditional Japanese puppet drama commonly known as ''ningyō jōruri '' or Bu ...

, based in

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...

, which performs traditional Japanese puppet theater in the United States. In 2017, the film "Kaiju Bunraku" debuted at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

, featuring the puppetry of Holman's Bunraku Bay Puppet Theater. Holman has also published many translations of modern Japanese and Korean literature, including ''

The Old Capital is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata first published in 1962. It was one of three novels cited by the Nobel Committee in their decision to award Kawabata the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. ''The Old Capital'' was first translated ...

'' (1987), ''

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories is the name Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata gave to 146 short stories he wrote during his long career. The earliest stories were published in the early 1920s, with the last appearing posthumously in 1972. The first Japanese edition to collect ...

'' (1988), and '' The Dancing Girl of Izu'' (1998), by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and ...

; ''The Book of Masks'' (1989) and ''Shadows of Sound'' (1990), by

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

n writer Hwang Sun-wŏn; and ''The House of Twilight'' by Korean author Yun Heung-gil. Holman has taught Japanese language, literature, and theater and Korean literature at colleges and universities in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. From 2005 until 2017, Holman taught Japanese language, Japanese and Korean Literature, and Japanese theater, as Teaching Professor and Coordinator of the Japanese Studies Program at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

. In 2019 he moved to the city of

Tokushima is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 682,439 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,146 Square kilometre, km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture b ...

in Japan, where currently lives and where he founded the troupe, Tokubeiza, which performs traditional Japanese puppet theater.

Works translated

*Hwang Sun-won. ''Shadows of Sound''. Mercury House, 1989. *Hwang Sun-won. ''Book of Masks''. *Kawabata Yasunari. ''The Old Capital''. North Point, 1987. . Revised edition—Counterpoint, 2006. . *Kawabata Yasunari. ''Palm-of-the-Hand Stories''. North Point, 1988. Repr. by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, *Kawabata Yasunari. ''The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories''. Counterpoint, 1997. *Yun Heung-gil. ''The House of Twilight''.

References

http://grs.missouri.edu/people/holman.html

External links

Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holman, J. Martin Entertainers from Louisville, Kentucky Writers from Louisville, Kentucky Japanese–English translators Korean–English translators American puppeteers Scholars of Japanese literature University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Missouri faculty Living people 1957 births