Faubion Bowers, the theater expert credited with saving kabuki after World War II, died in New York of heart failure Nov. 16, aged 82.
Born in Miami, Okla. (near Tulsa), Bowers was one of the most distinguished of a long line of Japanophiles who have hailed from the American heartland: David Kidd from Kentucky; Meredith Weatherby from Texas; William Gilkey from Oklahoma; Donald Richie from Ohio and many others.
As a youth Bowers showed brilliance as a pianist, and after graduating from the University of Oklahoma, attended the University of Poitiers in France, as well as Columbia and the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
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