An Afternoon with Celebrated Translator Howard Goldblatt

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures welcomed back its alum and former faculty member Professor Howard Goldblatt, the preeminent translator of Chinese Literature of our time, for a series of events on Friday 9/27 and Saturday 9/28. Goldblatt has translated over 50 Chinese-language authors, including Mo Yan 莫言, the 2012 winner of the Nobel Prize in literature and Pai Hsien-yung 白先勇, author of one of the first gay novels in Chinese. Goldblatt is also a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow. Goldblatt’s journey into the realm of Chinese literature began at SF State where he obtained an MA in Chinese in 1971 and taught from 1974 until 1988. 

On Friday Goldblatt first met with 9 current graduate students in Chinese for a hands-on translation workshop. On Saturday, an audience of 70 listened to Goldblatt talk about his career as a translator, his friendships with Chinese writers, his time at SF State, and a farewell poem that has seen him through life's most poignant moments. The event culminated with Goldblatt donating a calligraphy of the poem that had been given to him 50 years earlier by Professor Kai-yu Hsu, the founder of the Chinese Program at SF State.