Acclaimed translator Yang Xianyi dies at 95
- Source: Global Times
- [22:43 November 24 2009]
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By Du Guodong and Mao Renjie
Translator Yang Xianyi in August, 2009. Photo: CFP
One of China's most well known and highly acclaimed translators, Yang Xianyi, lost his battle with cancer Monday in Beijing at the age of 95.
Yang's niece Zhao Heng told the Global Times that Yang had been fighting lymphatic cancer for years and passed away at Beijing Meitan Hospital Monday morning after receiving treatment for advanced stages of the disease last month.
Yang was known throughout China and much of the international literary world for having translated a great number of Chinese classical works into English, ranging from Selections from Records of the Historian, Li Sao, The Travels of Lao Can and A Dream of Red Mansions to modern classics such as Lu Xun: Selected Works and The Song of Youth. Yang usually worked with his British wife, Gladys Yang, also widely known as a brilliant translator.
The couple's translations have been internationally recognized for their accuracy, likeness and faithfulness to the original work, while at the same time catering to the taste of the target language. According to critics and experts alike, their translations are second to none among Chinese translators in terms of both quality and significance.
One of their most famous translations, A Dream of Red Mansions, began in the early 1960s and ended in 1974. Considered representative of the Yangs, it continues to be highly received worldwide for its exact rendering of the Chinese literary classic. The couple have been credited with making the work accessible to the outside world and it is regarded as the genuine version that has allowed Westerners to understand the traditional Chinese love story. Many colleges in the US and throughout the world use the Yang's version as textbooks to study Chinese literature.
In 1952, Yang Xianyi was appointed as chief editor of Chinese Literature, a magazine founded in 1951. It served as a portal for introducing elite Chinese literature to the outside world, especially before China's reform and opening up policy.
For his outstanding achievements, Yang received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation from the Translators Association of China on September 17 this year, the second translator ever to receive the accolade next to master scholar Ji Xianlin.
