矢島翠（1932-2011）
・Wikipedia
東京市出身。カトリック系の小学校で学び、幼い頃から英語に親しんだ[4]。一方で典型的な皇国少女でもあった[5]。女子に門戸が開かれたばかりの東京大学文学部に入学し、1955年英文科卒業[4][1]。同年共同通信社に入社、特信部外国通信部配属[1]。1960年特信部文化部、1968年ホノルル特派員、1971年外信部、1974年ニューヨーク特派員を歴任し、1976年帰国後退社[1]。のちフリーランスで文筆活動をし[6][7]、また大学の映画史の講座を受け持ったりした[8]。
私生活では、大学卒業後まもなく大学の同級生でのちの映画助監督と結婚、1959年に出産[9]。1961年、半年間休職し夫のパリ高等映画学院留学に随行[10]。のち離婚[9]、加藤周一と再婚[7]。 1983年10月から1984年7月までヴェネツィア大学より日本学客員教授として招聘された加藤とともにイタリア・ヴェネツィアに滞在[11]。
2009年6月2日、「九条の会講演会 - 加藤周一さんの志を受けついで」に出席、あいさつをした[12]。2010年2月27日公開の映画「しかし それだけではない。加藤周一 幽霊と語る」で製作者の一人を務めた[13]。
2011年8月30日、呼吸不全のため東京都内の病院で死去。79歳没[2]。 喪主・長谷川季里子（長女）
【書影】
・矢島翠「女性特派員ノート」（*)（人文書院 1978..6.30）
・矢島翠「出会いの遠近法」（*)（潮出版社 1979.7.10）
・矢島翠「ラ・ジャポネーズ キク・ヤマタの一生」(*))（潮出版社 1983、のち 1990 ちくま文庫（*））
・矢島翠「ヴェネツィア暮し」（*)（朝日新聞社 1987.10.31 のち平凡社ライブラリー(*) 1994）
・矢島翠訳「アントニオーニ」（ピエール・ルプロオン フランス語版）(*)（三一書房 現代のシネマ 1969）
・矢島翠訳「日本人の死生観 上・下」（*)（加藤周一 マイケル・ライシュ(Michael Reich)
ロバート・J・リフトン 岩波新書 1977）
・矢島翠訳「マヤ・アンジェロウ「自伝1 歌え翔べない鳥たちよ」「自伝2 街よ、我が名を高らかに」（*)｛人文書院 1979.7.1、1980.7.10）
・矢島翠訳「パリ1930年代 一詩人の回想」（*)（ルネ・ドゥ・ベルヴァル(Rene de Berval)、岩波新書 1981）
・矢島翠訳「「強き性、お前の名は」（*)（ミシェル・ウォレス（英語版） 朝日新聞社 女たちの同時代）
1982）
・矢島翠訳「ブニュエル 映画、わが自由の幻想」（*)（早川書房 1984.7.15）
・矢島翠訳「ロベール・ギラン「アジア特電 1937〜1985」（*)（平凡社 1988.6.24）
・矢島翠訳「ステファノ・ロンコローニ編 ロッセリーニの〈自伝に近く〉」（*)（朝日新聞社 1994..8.1）
・矢島翠訳「キク・ヤマタ「マサコ 麗しき夫人」（*)（朝日新聞社 1999.8.5）
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By Kazue Suzuki, Asahi Weekly Japan's surrender to the Allied Powers in August 1945 surprised 13-year-old Midori Yajima. "I didn't have the slightest idea that Japan would be defeated," said Yajima, a prominent writer and critic. It was an overturn of values overnight. Militarism was out. Democracy was in. The emperor was no longer the sovereign power but a symbol. New education emphasized the importance of individuals. Learning English became a national passion. "I remember the excitement of watching the U.S. movie 'His Butler's Sister,'" she said. "In the film America was radiant." Even with all these windfalls of democracy, she could not help but be cynical and cautious about Japan's future. "I feared vaguely that a certain Japanese mentality could push history backward." Yajima passed an entrance exam and enrolled at the University of Tokyo, which had recently opened its doors to women. She majored in English literature. It was a time when Japan-U.S. relations became precarious regarding security issues and students passionately discussed politics. "Job prospects for literature students, male or female, were dim," she recalled. "English classes were not designed to train practical skills." English had been a favorite subject since she first learned children's poems at 6 from a nun at a Catholic elementary school. "Twenty froggies went to school down beside a plashy pool," she recited. English was part of her school curriculum, and teachers from different parts of the globe spoke their native languages outside their classrooms. After being interrupted during the war, English classes were resumed, although Yajima regretted the lost years. "When a nun teacher introduced an anthology of poems, which included Keats' and Poe's, which was rather exceptional, I wished I had more such classes," she said. Yajima was one of the first women in the newsroom when she joined Kyodo News Service in 1955. "While I knew I was just a 'token,' I felt as if I were a representative of women and worked hard to keep up with male colleagues." Her first assignment included translating wire news for society and feature pages. "I was frustrated as I translated 'woman,' for example, finding the right Japanese word, fujin, onna, josei, joshi or uman in katakana." Her frustrations ended when she became a New York correspondent - again the first Japanese woman in the post - in 1974. "It was an eye-opener for me," she said. "Women's movement is a 'women's movement' in English," she said. "By sharing the fundamental concept, all women shared women's problems and hopes." Meeting with many women in the midst of the second wave of the U.S. women's movement, Yajima felt freed from the many constraints she had in Tokyo. "Many women here treated me as another woman friend; not a journalist from Japan. I could be myself." She found that she had been bound by her role as a woman reporter, an elite career woman, who must constantly prove that she is as competent as her male colleagues. "From a public service employee in a small Midwest town to New York activists, I met women who vividly talk about themselves. They opened my heart. I learned to write stories as I saw them." She reported what she saw - not through the eyes of America or those of men - which perhaps changed the tone of women's news being reported from America in the Japanese press, she said. "Women's liberation used to be reported as something weird done by a small number of militant feminists who burnt their bras during demonstrations." 偶然出会った日本人女性 Yajima never failed to talk to people who were less visible and not as outspoken as many Americans. Yajima recalled a Japanese woman she unexpectedly met in Windsor, Missouri, in 1976 when she was on assignment writing about a "typical American town" during the U.S. bicentennial. "I did not expect I would see a Japanese woman in a tiny town of 3,000 people," she recalled. "The wife of a U.S. Air Force member, Masako, had settled there after moving from several military bases in Japan." Masako told Yajima her story. "I am in the America I dreamed of in my girlhood. But there is no movie theater in town and I have no friends to talk to. People stare at me when I go to church." "Masako showed me 12 suits, still new, which she said her parents presented to her, saying she would need them for parties." Yajima felt empathy for Masako, since she too had dreamed after the war of going to America. When her assignment to Kyodo's New York office ended, Yajima faced a career dilemma. The Japanese emperor had visited America in September-October 1975 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his accession. Two hundred Japanese journalists covered his visit. "It was the most miserable time in my two-year sojourn in New York," she wrote in her memoirs. Yajima said she had thought the media people were professional enough, but what they produced was mass praise for the emperor's personality and the success of his visit, as if it marked the end of the long postwar era. "It reminded me of wartime reporting when the media was a mouthpiece of the government," she wrote. Yajima had reached her limit, and felt pain in her stomach and anger. When she returned home, she quit her job. She said, "I had no regrets about my decision." Over the years, Yajima's passion for writing and for learning other languages never dwindled. In 1979 her translation of the American poet Maya Angelou's autobiography, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," was published. She also learned French and Italian to translate biographies and books on the cinema. "Learning a language is to come closer and to blend into another culture," she said. "With Italian, you do not have to worry about the twisted relationship with the country you tend to have with English - war, occupation and those long years of 'alliance' -through which you are bounced necessarily between admiration and disillusion, and intimacy and criticism."
sahi Weekly, April 30, 2006より
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