Yang Xianyi, one of China's most highly-acclaimed translators, and one of the two translator scholars who were conferred the “Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation “ by Translators Association of China, died of cancer this Monday, Nov. 23, 2009.

Yang was born in Tianjin in 1914. He studied classic literature in Oxford since 1934 and returned to China in 1940.

Together with his British wife, Gladys Taylor, Yang began translating a large quantity of Chinese classics into English since 1953, including the pre-Qin (approx. 20th century BC to 221BC) lyrical poem Li Sao and the masterpiece A Dream of Red Mansions of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The translation of the Chinese classic, A Dream of Red Mansions (published in 1974 by the FLP) embraces the widest recognition from both scholars and readers, and has gained international reputation for this magnificent couple.

Four years after China’s reform and opening-up in 1978, as chief editor of Chinese Literature, a magazine founded in 1951, Yang initiated the Panda Books project, reopening a window between the Chinese literature circle and the outside world. This series of books cover both Chinese classics and modern literature, including Selections from the “Book of Songs”, Poetry/Prose of Ming & Qing and A Small Town Called Hibiscus, etc.

Yang served as a Council Member, and then an Honorary Council Member of Translators Association of China (TAC) since the birth of TAC in 1982, and the English name of TAC’s Journal: Chinese Translators Journal, was finalized by Yang in 1986.  

His English autobiography White Tiger: An Autobiography of Yang Xianyi was published in 2002.