Burton Watson is among the most revered translators of classical Chinese and Japanese poetry. Born in 1925 in New Rochelle, New York, he served for three years in the Navy during World War II, before beginning Chinese studies at Columbia University, where he eventually became a professor of Chinese. Among his dozens of translations of major works of Japanese and Chinese history, poetry, and philosophy, his Chuang Tzu is an acknowledged classic. He has edited The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry, translated The Lotus Sutra, and received both the Gold Medal Award of the Translation Center at Columbia University and the PEN Translation Prize.
