John Willett

John William Mills Willett, MBE (24 June 1917 – 20 August 2002) was a British translator and scholar, who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.

Early life Willett was born in Hampstead and was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford. He went on to the Manchester College of Art and Dance, and then to Vienna, where he studied music (Willett played the cello) and stage design.

Willett began his career as a theatre designer. However, this career was cut short by World War II. He served in Intelligence and the Eighth Army, in North Africa and Italy. Beginning his war in July 1940 as a second lieutenant in the British Army, he ended it just over five years later as a lieutenant colonel. In August 1942 he was transferred to the Intelligence Corps, in April 1944 he was mentioned in dispatches and in June 1945 he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). He had a son, John, an architect. From his daughter Alison, he is the great-grandfather of Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay.

Brecht Willett's love of Brecht began in the 1930s. He first studied Brecht's theatre design work. After the war, he became friends with Brecht himself, although it is said that the friendship got off to a bad start due to a disagreement about the Hitler–Stalin pact, but got back on track after they discovered that they were both interested in Tacitus.

Willett worked on English translations for many of Brecht's plays, including:

Life of Galileo The Good Person of Setzuan The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Mother Courage and Her Children