He was born in California in 1939. When he graduated from the college, he joined the army and as a communication officer ，he was dispatched to Taiwan ，which gave him an opportunity to learn Chinese language and culture. Once he admitted that he might be nothing now, if he didn’t have the chance to learn Chinese. After retiring from the army, he returned to America and continued making his research on Chinese literature at San Francisco University and Indiana University. He acquired the Doctor degree in the area of Contemporary Chinese Literature, under his supervisor’s help, Liu Wuji, a famous Chinese scholar.

Howard Goldblatt began to translate Chinese works from 1970s. Until now he has translated more than fifty works of modern writers in China mainland, Macow and Hong Kong. Howard Goldblatt’s translation career started from his research of Xiao Hong and the writers in the northeast China. Now, he works as an editor of Modern Chinese Literature. He is also the author of some critical books on modern and contemporary Chinese writing.

2.2.2 Howard Goldblatt’s Version of Red Sorghum

In the last ten years, the most influential one among Howard Goldblatt’s translated works is Red Sorghum. This English version is primarily published by Heinemann and Viking in 1993.To some extent, we can say the success of Red Sorghum paved the way for more and more Chinese literary works entering the world literature.