Ya Hsien (Ya Xian) is the penname of Wang Ching-Lin (Wang Qinglin). Born in Nanyang County, Henan Province, he was active in Taiwan's Modernist Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best known for a single collection of poetry titled Abyss, published in 1968, and an expanded edition in 1971. He stopped writing poetry altogether in the mid-1960s. In 1968 he attended the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, and later attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from which he received an MA in East Asian Studies. After retiring in 1971 with the rank of Lieutenant Commander, he taught and edited at a series of magazines, eventually editing the influential literary supplement of the United Daily News. He now calls Vancouver home but spends a good deal of time in Taiwan and China.
John Balcom is an award-winning translator of Chinese literature, philosophy, and children’s books. He teaches in the Graduate School of Translation, Interpretation and Language Education at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school of Middlebury College. Balcom conducted translation workshops and has lectured on literary translation in the US, Europe, and Asia. He is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association and has also served on the Literary Translation Committee of the International Federation of Translators. Recent publications include Grassroots (Zephyr 2014), Stone Cell by Lo Fu (Zephyr 2012) and Trees without Wind by Li Rui (Columbia University Press 2012). His translation of Huang Fan’s Zero won the 2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award in the novel/novella category. He lives in Monterey, California.
