Dorothy Britton Author

Anglo-American writer, poet, composer, musician, Dorothy Britton (Lady Bouchier, MBE) was born in Japan and educated in Britain and the USA. A pupil of Darius Milhaud she is known for her popular Capitol Records album Japanese Sketches, hailed by the American Record Guide as a highly successful ‘translation of the koto/samisen aesthetic into occidental terms’. Capitol also commissioned a musical. In addition, she had regular programmes on NHK’s Radio Japan introducing Japanese folklore, music and musicians, for listeners abroad, as well as a twelve-year TV programme teaching English conversation to Japanese middle-school pupils and singing British folksongs with her Irish harp. Her distinguished translation of Basho’s Narrow Road to a Far Province is a classic. She is also well known for her translation of Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s best-seller Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window, and short stories by Ryonosuke Akutagawa.