Profiles

Renowned Chinese translator Yang Xianyi dies

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-24 13:41

Undated file photo shows Yang Xianyi and his British wife Gladys Taylor. [Xinhua]

BEIJING: Renowned Chinese literature translator Yang Xianyi has died at the age of 94, Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.

Together with his British wife, Gladys Taylor, Yang translated classics such as the 18th century "A Dream of Red Mansions" as well as more modern works by 20th century writers such Lu Xun.

Born in the northern treaty port of Tianjin in 1915, Yang was sent by his wealthy family to study classics at Oxford University in 1936, where he met Taylor.

Returning to China in 1940, the two married and embarked on a decades-long career in translation.

Their later work, including foreign classics translated into Chinese, was mostly published through Beijing's Foreign Languages Press, becoming standard texts for generations of China scholars.

He published his autobiography, White Tiger, in 2000, one year after Taylor's death, and moved in with one of his two daughters in Beijing.

Yang died on Monday in Beijing after a long illness, Xinhua said. He had reportedly been hospitalized for several weeks with throat cancer and a lung infection.