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.