About Makoto Ueda
Lived 1931 – 2020 (aged 88–89). Makoto Ueda was an American writer, literary critic, journalist, academic, university teacher and japanologist.
was a professor emeritus of Japanese literature at Stanford University. Ueda won the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 1996 for his translated anthology Modern Japanese Tanka (Columbia University Press, 1996).
Education and career He earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1961.
In 2004–2005 he served as the honorary curator of the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento, California. He was given that honor "in recognition of Ueda’s many decades of academic writing about haiku and related genres and his leading translations of Japanese haiku." The library added that "Ueda has been our most consistently useful source for information on Japanese haiku, as well as our finest source for the poems in translation, from Bashô to the present day." His work on female poets and 20th century poets "had an enormous impact".
The Old Pine Tree (1962) Literary and Art Theories in Japan (1967) Matsuo Bashō: The Master Haiku Poet (1970) Modern Japanese Haiku, an Anthology (1976) Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature (1976) Explorations: Essays in Comparative Literature (1986) Bashō and His Interpreters: Selected Hokku With Commentary (1992) Modern Japanese Tanka (1996) Modern Japanese Writers and the Nature of Literature (1996) The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson (1998). Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu (2000) Far Beyond the Field: Haiku by Japanese Women (2003) Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa (2004) Mother of Dreams: Portrayals of Women in Modern Japanese Fiction (2004)
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Important facts
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Makoto Ueda's
Frequently asked questions
Who was Makoto Ueda?
Japanese literary critic
When was Makoto Ueda born?
Makoto Ueda was born in 1931 in Hyōgo Prefecture.
When did Makoto Ueda die?
Makoto Ueda died on 19 August 2020.
What was Makoto Ueda's occupation?
Makoto Ueda was a writer, literary critic, journalist, academic, university teacher and japanologist.
What nationality was Makoto Ueda?
Makoto Ueda was American.
Sources & further reading
· DBpedia: Makoto Ueda (poetry critic)
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Makoto Ueda. https://biography.guide/makoto-ueda/
MLA: "Makoto Ueda." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/makoto-ueda/.
Chicago: "Makoto Ueda." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/makoto-ueda/.
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