After several teaching jobs at colleges in China's southern cities, the couple was invited in 1943 to translate China's classics into English at the National Institute for Compilation and Translation in Chongqing. They spent three years translating Zizhi Tongjian, or Comprehensive Mirrors to Aid in Government, by Sima Guang (1019-86) of the Song Dynasty. This experience changed their life, though they lost the manuscripts during the ongoing war.

The couple started their translation careers when they both took positions at the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing in 1952. In addition to translations from Chinese to English, they introduced several Western classics to China, including Homer's Odyssey and George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. Yang was later appointed as editor in chief of Chinese Literature, a magazine founded in 1951 to introduce the best of Chinese literature to the outside world.

The couple started to translate the Chinese literary classic A Dream of Red Mansions in the early 1960s, but was unable to resume the work until 1972. The translation, completed in 1974, is considered as a representative piece of the Yangs and is regarded as a definitive version that has allowed Westerners to understand the classic Chinese love story.

Yang greatly valued the accuracy of his translations, says Li Jin, translator of Gladys Yang's unfinished autobiography, I Have Two Homelands—Gladys Tayler and Her World. He would always research before he started to translate any piece of work, and his introduction to the author and the background about where the work was created was deemed "very helpful" to better comprehension, Li said.

Many researchers of translation theory say Yang treated translation more as a cultural transplantation activity than as a linguistic transformation activity. Yang himself was also a poet and a scholar of cultural history. His biggest regret, his niece Zhao Heng said, was that he was unable to carry out further study of Chinese history and classical literature.

"He had wanted to be a scholar ever since he was young, but because Gladys liked translation, the couple translated a wide range of literary works throughout their entire life," said Zhao.

Yang believed anything could be translated, if the translator understood the original text and worked to the utmost of his abilities to present a readable rendering for target readers. During the work of translation, the Yangs did their best to avoid misleading readers because of cultural differences. During the process, they often took into consideration factors such as historical reasons, social elements and their instincts as translators.

In 1981, Yang initated the English language paperback series, Panda Books, to translate or reprint translated Chinese classics and modern or contemporary literary works.

For his outstanding achievements, Yang received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation from the Translators Association of China on September 17 this year, only the second translator ever to receive the accolade after master scholar Ji Xianlin.

"Yang has in his career translated a great number of traditional Chinese literary works into English and his achievements in this field are unparalleled," said Huang.

Recollecting his days of working alongside Yang, Huang said Yang was kind to everyone and that his tolerance and generosity were as desirable as his knowledge.

Yang gave up translation and moved to live with his younger daughter's family when Gladys died in 1999. He missed his wife and wrote a poem in classical Chinese for her, "Each other's companionship we enjoy since we were young, we are going to die some day. I thought that you and I would fly away together, but you have gone before..." Yang is survived by two daughters and four grandchildren.

(For more information, please click Timeless Yang Xianyi)