John Weil Nathan (born March 1940) is an American translator, writer, scholar, filmmaker, and Japanologist.
His translations from Japanese into English include the works of Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburō Ōe, Kōbō Abe, and Natsume Sōseki.
[4] Nathan is also an Emmy Award-winning producer, writer and director of several films about Japanese culture and society and American business.
[12][13] He lived in Tokyo for close to five years and departed Japan in 1966 to start a PhD program at Columbia University in New York.
[16] The status the society conferred allowed Nathan to undergo oral examinations in candidacy for a PhD without having attended graduate school.
[19] Nathan is currently Professor Emeritus of Japanese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
[26] In 1972, Nathan provided the script for Hiroshi Teshigahara's film Summer Soldiers, about U.S. Army deserters seeking refuge in Japan.
"[23] Nathan married Japanese artist Mayumi Oda in 1962,[34] in a Shinto wedding ceremony at the Prince Hotel in Akasaka.