Gladys Yang and her Chinese husband Yang Xianyi (SOHU.COM)

It is common to see Sino-foreign couples in China, but unusual to see a mixed couple who have devoted their careers to translating Chinese literature. The late British translator Gladys Yang and her Chinese husband Yang Xianyi are one such couple.

Born to British missionaries (a preacher and a teacher) in Peking (now Beijing) in 1919, Gladys B. Tayler was sent back to England for her education at the age of 7. She met Yang Xianyi, a fellow Oxford student from China, in the late 1930s and graduated in 1940, becoming Oxford's first graduate in Chinese literature. She married Yang, and the couple returned to China in 1940, where she taught in universities.

The Yangs began their careers in Beijing translating Chinese literature for Foreign Languages Press in the early 1950s, not long after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. During the "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976), the Yangs were jailed from 1968 to 1972, returning to translation work after their release.

"She ran the gamut--going as far back as China's classical period in the 5th century B.C., through later imperial works in the 7th through 19th centuries, and on to modern works," said Perry Link, a professor of modern Chinese language and literature at Princeton University. "After such famous translators from Chinese as Arthur Waley and James Legge of an earlier generation, Gladys Yang was No.1.''

Gladys died at the age of 80 in 1999, but 94-year-old Yang is still alive in Beijing. "She wanted to live a Chinese life and even after being in jail she still decided to stay in China," said her husband.

Her major translations (translated solo or jointly with her husband) included Shi Ji, a selection of works by historian Sima Qian (145 B.C.-87 B.C.); Keep the Red Flag Flying; The Courtesan's Jewel Box: Chinese Stories from the 10th to the 17th Centuries (1957); The Selected Stories of Lu Xun (1960), by one of the foremost Chinese writers of the early 20th century; and A Dream of Red Mansions (1978-80).

Covers of Yangs' translation works (FLIPKART.COM)

(Source: New York Times, Independent, )