Biography
Levy was born in 1950 to a Polish-American mother and a Jewish father. His father named him after a friend who was imprisoned in an internment camp during World War II. Levy's father was a diplomat, and the family moved around between Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. He graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor's degree in East Asian studies, and later received his doctorate from the same school for studying Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
After working as an assistant professor at Princeton, he moved to Stanford University and taught there. He later left and moved to Tokyo.
While at Princteon, Levy studied the Man'yōshū. His English translation of the text won him the 1982 U.S. National Book Award in category Translation (a split award).
Read more about this topic: Hideo Levy
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