TETSUKO KUROYANAGI, daughter of the celebrated violinist, was voted
Japan's most popular television personality fourteen times. She
studied to become an opera singer but then became an actress
instead, winning a prestigious award for her work in radio and
television. She spent 1972 in New York studying acting, and was
critically acclaimed in Japan for her leading role in works by
Albee and Shaffer and in Melchior Lengyel's "Ninotchka." Her daily
television talk show, "Tetsuko's Room," is still going strong after
more than twenty years. Japan's first such program, it was recently
awarded television's highest prize. This and the other shows on
which she regularly appears all enjoy top viewer ratings.
Devoted to welfare and conservation, Kuroyanagi is Asia's first
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador (see Totto-chan's Children and serves on
the board of the Worldwide Fund for Nature. The Totto
Foundation-financed with her book royalties-provides professional
training to deaf actors, with whom Kuroyanagi often appears.
Kuroyanagi has twice brought America's National Theater of the Deaf
to Japan, acting with them in sign language. She is the author of
ten books.
Translator DOROTHY BRITTON, author, poet, and composer, was born in
Japan and educated in the United States and England. A pupil of
Darius Milhaud, she is well known for her popular Capitol Records
album "Japanese Sketches," in which Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's father is
violin soloist. Her distinguished translation of Basho's Narrow
Road to a Far Province is a classic. She is author of The Japanese
Crane- Bird of Happiness and co-author of National Parks of Japan.
Her most recent work includes a translation of Princess Chichibu's
autobiography, The Silver Drum and Kuroyanagi's Totto-chan's
Children.
"[Totto-chan] is a quiet indictment of sterile education." —New
York Times
"Sensitively written, delicately illustrated, poetically
translated, Totto-chan is, like a haiku, filled with aesthetic and
philosophical depth." —Library Journal
"[Totto-chan] has reminded millions of Japanese what children think
education should be." —International Herald Tribune
"Totto-chan can be expected to attract American educators, parents,
and perhaps some children who appreciate the international view
beyond their own first-floor window." —Christian Science Monitor
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