Helen Craig McCullough

Helen Craig McCullough (February 17, 1918 – April 6, 1998) was an American academic, translator and Japanologist.  She is best known for her 1988 translation of The Tale of the Heike.<ref>Mercado, Stephen C.  "Book Review: Deciphering the Rising Sun: Navy and Marine Corps Codebreakers, Translators, and Interpreters in the Pacific War by Roger Dingman," Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010), p. 3n7; retrieved 2012-11-2.</ref>

Early life
McCullough was born in California.  She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1939 with a degree in political science. Early in World War II, she studied Japanese at the U.S. Navy’s Language School in Boulder, Colorado. In 1950, she returned to Berkeley where she earned an MA and PhD. She married fellow Berkeley graduate student William H. McCullough.; (full view) Calisphere site 
 
Career
McCullough was a scholar of classical Japanese poetry and prose. She was a lecturer at Stanford, where her husband William was on the faculty (1964-1969).  In 1969, she and William both joined the Department of Oriental Languages at Berkeley, her alma mater, where she began as lecturer and later received tenure as Professor of Oriental Languages in 1975.

Selected works
McCullough’s scholarly publications included 11 volumes of studies and translations. Her publications included the study Brocade by Night: 'Kokin Wakashu' and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry and translations of major works of Japanese literature:Taiheiki a Chronicle of Medieval JapanYoshitsune A 15th Century Japanese ChronicleThe Tale of the HeikeKokin Wakashu: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese PoetryTales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from 10th Century Japan (Ariwara no Narihira)Okagami, the Great Mirror: Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027 and His Times : a Study and Translation)  ;  (2 vols.)  -- the Eiga Monogatari''

Honors
Her honors included several visiting professorships and a Medal of Honor from the Japanese government.

References

Category:Japanese–English translators
Category:Japanese literature academics
Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni
Category:Stanford University faculty
Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty
Category:1918 births
Category:1998 deaths
Category:American translators
Category:20th-century translators
Category:Ise Monogatari
Category:20th-century American women writers