(FILE)

Yang Jiang, the famed Chinese translator and writer, celebrates her 100th birthday on July 17.

Yang graduated from Soochow University in 1932 and undertook further study in Britain and France from 1935 to 1938. After returning to China, she first taught in universities in Shanghai and Beijing, and then became a researcher at the Institute of Literature and the Institute of Foreign Literature under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

During her long career Yang translated a number of books, but her most famous work is her translation of Miguel de Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote (1978). Her translation is regarded as a work of art in its own right.

Yang's fluency in English, French and Spanish, ensured the accuracy of her translation, and it remains the most widely circulated of all the translations of the Spanish classic.

Yang has also published a number of original scripts, novels and essays during her prolific life. Her late husband Qian Zhongshu was also one of the most famous writers and translators in China.