Henryk Lipszyc is a Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 scientist of Jewish ancestry, specialist in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese culture, theatre and a translator from Japanese. In 1964 he graduated from the Warsaw University. Between 1972 and 1978 he studied at various Japanese universities, including University of Waseda and University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo

, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...

, thanks to a scholarship of the Ministry of Education of Japan. In 1987 he was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Studies on Orient at the University of Tel Aviv.

Upon his return to Poland, he became a professor at the Department of Japanese and Korean Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw. He also became one of the most notable translators of Japanese books to Polish, including works by Kenko

Yoshida Kenko

was a Japanese author and Buddhist monk. His most famous work is "Tsurezuregusa" , one of the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature. Kenko wrote during the Muromachi and Kamakura periods.-Life and work:...

, Sato Makoto, Abe Kobo, Kawabata Yasunari and Mishima Yukio. He also authored numerous texts on Polish-Japanese relations and Japanese theatre in both Poland and Japan. Between 1991 and 1996 he served as the embassador of Poland in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. Also, between 1991 and 2000 and the since 2003 he heads the Department of Japanese and Korean Studies and works as a professor at the Collegium Civitas

Collegium Civitas

Collegium Civitas is a university located in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. It was established under the auspices of five Institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1997 and has relied extensively upon the teaching and research traditions of these renowned institutions...

. Finally, he is also an active member of the Warsaw Jewish commune. For his work on translating the most valuable pieces of Japanese literature and advertising modern Japanese culture, in 1992 Lipszyc was awarded with the Order of the Rising Sun

Order of the Rising Sun

The is a Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji of Japan. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese Government, created on April 10, 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge features rays of sunlight from the rising sun...

. After the Expo 2005

Expo 2005

Expo 2005 was the World's Fair held for 185 days between Friday, March 25 and Sunday, September 25, 2005, in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, east of the city of Nagoya. It was a Specialized International Exhibition under the scheme of the 1972 protocol of the Convention relating to International Exhibitions...

 he was also awarded with Golden Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland.