Howard Goldblatt

Howard Goldblatt has taught modern Chinese literature and culture for more than a quarter of a century, first at San Francisco State University (1974-88) and then at the University of Colorado (1988-2002) before taking up an appointment as Research Professor of Chinese at the University of Notre Dame. Although he retired from teaching in 2006, he continues his association with Notre Dame and since 2008 has been Director of the Notre Dame Center for Asian Studies.

The foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West, he has published English translations of nearly fifty novels and story collections by writers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. His translation (with Sylvia Li-chun Lin) of Notes of a Desolate Man by the Taiwanese novelist Chu T’ien-wen won the 1999 "Translation of the Year" award given by the American Translators Association. His translation of Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong won the inaugural Man Asian Prize in 2008 and his translation of Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out won the inaugural Newman Prize in 2009. He has also authored and edited half a dozen books on Chinese literature. The founding editor of the scholarly journal Modern Chinese Literature, he serves on the editorial and advisory boards of many scholarly and literary magazines, and has contributed essays and articles to The Washington Post, The Times of London, TIME Magazine, World Literature Today, and The Los Angeles Times, as well as scholarly books and journals.

Mr. Goldblatt will be translating Mo Yan’s Tanxiang xing (Sandalwood Punishment) during his Fellowship term.