Xu Yuanchong was born on April 18, 1921 in Jiangxi, China. He is best known for translating Chinese ancient poems into English and French. Xu took foreign language studies at Tsinghua University after he studied abroad. And after that, he became a professor in English and French. Since 1983, he has been a professor at Peking University.
Xu's mother was well educated and good at painting. She had great influence on Xu in his literature. His uncle Xiong Shiyi was a translator, who translated the play Wang Baochuan into English, which was a hit in the UK. Xiong's achievement gave Xu a strong interest in learning English. In 1939, he translated his first work, Lin Huiyin's poem Do not throw away into English, which was published in the Literary Translation News.
His 30 poems were selected (选) as teaching materials by foreign universities. In 1994, British publishing company Penguin published Xu Yuanchong's 300 China's immortal poems (《中国不朽诗三百首》). That was the first time that the publishing company had published a Chinese translation. Apart from (除……之外) translating the classical Chinese poetry into foreign languages, Xu Yuanchong also translated many of the British and French classics into Chinese. Xu was awarded the “Lifetime achievements in translation” from the Translators Association of China (TAC) in 2010.
Now, at the age of 97, Xu is still working hard at translating. He said, “I start my work at 3：30 in the morning because I like doing what I like.”
