Gladys Yang

Gladys Yang (; 19 January 1919 – 18 November 1999) was a British translator of Chinese literature and the wife of another noted literary translator, Yang Xianyi.

Biography She was born Gladys Margaret Tayler at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China, where her father, John Bernard Tayler, was a Congregationalist missionary and a member of the London Missionary Society and where from childhood she became intrigued by Chinese culture.

She returned to England as a child and from 1927 to 1937 boarded at Walthamstow Hall in Sevenoaks, Kent. She then became Oxford University's first graduate in Chinese language in 1940, following studies there under Ernest Richard Hughes. It was at Oxford that she met Yang.

After their marriage, the couple were based in Beijing as prominent translators of Chinese literature into English in the latter half of the 20th century, working for the Foreign Languages Press. Their four-volume Selected Works of Lu Xun (1956–1957) made the major work of China's greatest 20th-century writer available in English for the first time. In 1957 their translation of the Qing dynasty novel The Scholars appeared.

The couple were imprisoned as "class enemies" from 1968 to 1972 during the Cultural Revolution. Their work on The Dream of Red Mansions, an 18th-century novel still read by almost all educated Chinese, was interrupted by their imprisonment, but their faithful, readable three-volume translation appeared in 1978.

Personal life Gladys Yang died in Beijing on November 18, 1999, aged 80, after a decade of declining health. She was survived by her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren. When the couple were identified as class enemies and kept in separate prisons from 1968 for four years, their children were sent to remote factory farms to work. Their son became mentally ill there and never recovered.

Translations Guo Moruo, Chu Yuan: A Play in Five Acts, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1953 Qu Yuan, Li Sao and Other Poems of Chu Yuan, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Language Press, 1953; republished as Selected Elegies of the State of Chu, 2001 Zhao Shu-li, Changes in Li Village, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1953 Hong Sheng, The Palace of Eternal Youth, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1955 Lu Xun, Selected Works of Lu Hsun, 4 vols., Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1956-1961 Wu Jingzi, The Scholars, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang; ill. by Cheng Shifa, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1957 Ancient Chinese Fables, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1957 Liang Bin, Keep the Red Flag Flying, China Youth Publishing House, 1957 Zhao Shu-li, Sanliwan Village, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1957 The Man Who Sold a Ghost : Chinese Tales of the 3rd-6th Centuries, trans. Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958 Selected Plays of Guan Hanqing, trans. Yang Hsien-yi end Gladys Yang, Shanghai, New Art and Literature Publishing House, 1958, republished: Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958, 1979 Feng Yuan-chun, A Short History of Classical Chinese Literature, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1958 Lu Xun, Old Tales Retold, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Language Press, 1961 The Dragon King's Daughter: Ten Tang Dynasty Stories, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1962; reprinted with three additional stories as Tang Dynasty Stories, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1986 Sima Qian, Records of the Historian, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, Hong Kong, The Commercial Press, 1974; republished: Selections from Records of the Historian Written by Szuma Chien, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1979 Lu Xun, Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Language Press, 1976 Cao Xueqin, A Dream of Red Mansions, trans. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang], Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1978 The Courtesan's Jewel Box: Chinese Stories of the Xth-XVIIth Centuries, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1980 Lazy Dragon: Chinese Stories from the Ming Dynasty, ed. Geremie Barme, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Hong Kong, Joint Publ. Co., 1981 Excerpts from Three Classical Chinese Novels [The Three Kingdoms, Pilgrimage to the West, Flowers in the Mirror], trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1981 Lu Xun, Call to Arms, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1981 Lu Xun, Wandering, trans. Yang Xianyi & Gladys Yang, Beijing, Foreign Languages Press, 1981 Shen Congwen, The Border Town and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang, Chinese Literature Press, 1981 Shen Congwen, Recollections of West Hunan, trans. Gladys Yang, Panda Books, 1982 George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1982 Li Guangtian, A Pitiful Plaything and Other Essays, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1982 Liu E, The Travels of Lao Can, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1983 Selections from the Book of Songs, trans. Yang Xianyi, Gladys Yang and Hu Shiguang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1983 Zhang Shouchen and Others, Traditional Comic Tales, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1983 Wang Meng, The Butterfly and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang [title novella], Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1983 Gu Hua, A Small Town Called Hibiscus, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature Press, 1983 Ding Ling, The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1984 Poetry and Prose of the Tang and Song, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, distributed by China Publications Centre, 1984 Zhang Xianliang, Mimosa and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang [title novel], Beijing, Chinese Literature Press, 1985 Ru Zhijuan, Lilies and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang, et al., Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1985 Gu Hua, Pagoda Ridge and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1985 Poetry and Prose of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1986 Deng Youmei, Snuff-Bottles and Other Stories, trans. Gladys Yang, Beijing, Chinese Literature, 1986 Zhang Xinxin & Sang Ye, Chinese Profiles, trans. Gladys Yang, et al., Beijing, Chinese Literature Press, 1986 Zhang Jie, Love Must Not Be Forgotten, trans. Gladys Yang, et al., Beijing, Chinese Literature Press, 1987 Zhang Jie, Leaden Wings, trans. Gladys Yang, London, Virago Press, 1987. Zhang Jie, As Long As Nothing Happens, Nothing Will, trans. Gladys Yang, Deborah J. Leonard and Zhang Andong, London, Virago Press, 1988. Tao Yuanming, Selected Poems, trans. Gladys Yang & Yang Xianyi, Beijing, Chinese Literature Press, 1993 Shen Congwen, Selected Stories by Shen Congwen, edited by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Chinese Literature Press, 1999 Feng Menglong, Selected Chinese Stories of the Song and Ming Dynasties, trans. Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, Beijing, 2000