沉痛哀悼杨宪益先生
The death of celebrated translator, scholar and poet Yang Xianyi was mourned this morning in western Beijing at Baobaoshan cemetery. Hundreds of well-wishers and media were there to pay respects to Yang Xianyi, he was 95 years old.
Yang Xianyi’s life was ripe with celebrated achievements, he and his wife Gladys Taylor produced definitive translations of Chinese classics and Yang was full of intellectual vibrancy, an “upright scholar” if modern China ever produced one. In China’s pivotal century, his life might well be the quintessential definition of inter-cultural exchange.
Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Taylor met at Oxford in the 1930s, and returned together to a war torn China, where they roamed in the southwest before they began translating, eventually moving to Beijing in 1951 in support of the Communists, they engaged in decades of translation, political persecution, and loving companionship.
The funeral hall was filled with flowers, and well wishes from leaders as high as Jiang Zemin, Wen Jiabao and Wu Bangguo, nearly the entire staff of the Foreign Languages Press came to pay respects, but the passing was only made easier to know that Yang Xianyi’s tremendous contributions will outlive him for many decades to come.
Never afraid to speak his mind, always standing on the side of righteousness and humanistic and sympathetic to the people, the passing of an intellectual such as Yang Xianyi brings an era of heroism nearer to a close.
R.I.P. Yang Xianyi 杨宪益 (1915-2009)
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The Guardian has an excellent obituary by old friend John Gittings
看卫报的中文版的讣告： 大翻译家杨宪益
DANWEI has translated some of his more political vignettes in an obituary here
看新浪的杨宪益告别仪式报道
Yang Xianyi NYT obituary
more from the Independent
I guess they are right, leave it to those fact checkers! Maybe Chinese media are counting age the traditional Chinese way, aka, year in the womb?
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