Deceased March 3, 2005

View alumni profile (log in required)


In Memory

Mitzukazu (Mitsu) Shiboh was truly one of a kind.

Mitsu, who suffered a stroke and passed away shortly thereafter on March 3, 2005, in Numazu-city, Shizuoka prefecture, near Tokyo, stood out even in an Amherst class full of iconoclasts for his brilliance, humor and idiosyncratic approach to life.

Born to an elite Japanese family (his grandfather was a senior military leader at the time of World War II who was tried after the War for his part in it—which prompted very complex feelings in his grandson), Mitsu followed a long line of Japanese in attending Amherst (which in the 19th century was the first U.S. college to graduate Japanese students).

At Amherst, Mitsu became deeply involved in the cause of racial justice. He traveled to the deep South to take part in civil rights work, at times in a way that involved some personal risk. That work, and his chronicling of it, spurred his interest in being a journalist, writing about the most difficult political and social issues of the day.

After graduation from Amherst and a stint at the Sorbonne, Mitsu became a writer of distinction in Japan, publishing numerous books, articles and other papers on a broad range of subjects and winning wide recognition and awards for his work.

Two areas marked his work. One was the Middle East. Mitsu interviewed Yasir Arafat numerous times and wrote widely on the Israeli-Palestinian situation. This interest led him in 1986 to found the Japan Palestine Medical Association, which organization he served as chairman for many years.

Mitsu’s other great professional interest was U.S. politics. In the best Amherst tradition, he wrote a de Tocqueville-like study of the American nation and character that sold widely and was favorably reviewed in Japan. He also spent months in the hamlets of Iowa and New Hampshire, charting presidential primaries (and later elections).

Mitsu also taught at Tokai University in Tokyo and was a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School. And among his many other activities, he served in the leadership of Japanese PEN (the writers’ organization) and through it, championed journalistic freedom in China and elsewhere.

Mitsu, of course, was not all about work. He was a devoted husband of Luisa Helena Junqueira Franco and father of Maya Shiboh. And he had a great way of reminding his friends and all those he touched about what really mattered in life. Many was the time—at Amherst, during his year at Harvard, and since—that he wisely tore me away from work with his characteristic chuckle and an invitation to shoot the breeze over a beer about politics, Amherst, the relative peculiarities of American and Japanese life and much more. As he had done at Amherst, he teased me mercilessly, but affectionately, about keeping perspective—for which memories I remain ever grateful. He will be dearly missed.

Bill Alford ’70