David Pearsall Dutcher

Jos Vos

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Sep 9, 2026, 6:17:54 AM (3 days ago) Sep 9

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Dear All,

Does anyone have contact details for David Pearsall Dutcher?

Apparently he translated all of Sagoromo monogatari, but his work was never published, although you can find an excerpt here:

Sagoromo, Co-Winner 2014 Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize - Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

With kind regards,

Jos Vos (translator Japanese to Dutch)

Daniel Joseph

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Sep 9, 2026, 10:58:14 AM (3 days ago) Sep 9

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Dear Jos,

When I was Edwin Cranston's student he used to talk about David, but I have a vague recollection that he either died or sort of disappeared...

Charo might remember the details better...?

On the other hand, or colleague Steve Hanna (another of Ed Cranston's students) has translated the entire Sagoromo, and is actively looking for a publisher.

I'd be happy to put you in touch, and I'm sure he'd share the translation with you if you're interested.

Best,

Dan

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Avery Morrow

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Sep 9, 2026, 10:58:15 AM (3 days ago) Sep 9

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Dear Jos,

I do not, but his translation is publicly available here:

https://www.proquest.com/docview/305339665

Yours,
Avery Morrow

On Wed, Sep 9, 2026 at 6:17 AM Jos Vos <josm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>

Charo D'Etcheverry

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Sep 10, 2026, 9:54:43 AM (2 days ago) Sep 10

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Dear all,

David was retired and in ill health in Japan when Professor Cranston and I last spoke about him, many years ago now. Professor Cranston had hoped to see the full version of his partial translation in print, and it is lovely (as seen in the published excerpt). As Dan notes, Steve Hanna has also completed a full translation that some folks on this list have probably refereed. I tested Hanna's version in a Genji-centered undergraduate class of 80 or so students a few years ago, in a series of extra credit assignments, and found that the participants enjoyed it--and that they learned quite a bit from drawing comparisons. I think that teaching Dutcher's Sagoromo alongside the relevant portions of Hanna's would also be quite instructive, and a timely reminder of this and other tales' fuller lives as diverse sets of texts with competing styles and perspectives on the same events.

Charo D'Etcheverry

Chair, Asian Languages and Cultures, UW Madison

Leonardo Wolfe

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Sep 10, 2026, 1:25:04 PM (2 days ago) Sep 10

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Dear members,

This is not of much assistance, but I would like to share a heartwarming extract from the story behind the translation,

"According to his dissertation adviser Professor of Japanese Literature Edwin Cranston, Dutcher, now 62, arrived at Harvard in 1977 as a graduate student in East Asian Languages and Literatures. He finished his course work and part of his dissertation, a translation of a chapter from an 11th century Japanese narrative called “The Tale of Sagormo,” but somehow got bogged down working on the introduction and notes.

Time dragged on and the dissertation remained incomplete. Meanwhile, Dutcher moved to Japan where he worked as a writer, researcher, and translator and raised a family. He and Cranston stayed in touch, but as far as the department was concerned, Dutcher was “lost in the wilderness,” a scholarly casualty.

“I had no idea that he would ever finish,” Cranston said. “Then last October I got this astonishing e-mail message saying that he expected to have it done by June.”

Cranston learned that the crucial factor had been an act of generosity by another of Dutcher’s loyal supporters, a teacher from his undergraduate days at the University of Hawaii. Suffering from terminal cancer, she sent Dutcher a check for $20,000, urging him to concentrate on his dissertation and finish it while she was still alive."

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/06/collecting-rainy-day-color/

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe