Chinese translator of Australian literature. Professor Li Yao graduated from Inner Mongolian Normal University in 1966, and in 1980 Professor Li Yao was introduced to Henry Lawson's Favourite Stories (1976, compiled by Walter Stone) by Western Australian Alison Hewitt who was teaching English at the Inner Mongolian University in China at that time. Li Yao began translating the first story in the compilation, 'The Drover's Wife'. Inspired by Lawson and by Patrick White's The Tree of Man, also given to him by Hewitt, Li Yao dedicated himself to the translation of Australian literature and played an important role in promoting the study of Australian literature within China.
Li was the inaugural winner of the Australia-China Council Translation Prize, which he won for his translation of Alex Miller's The Ancestor Game. Among other awards, he was the winner of the Australia-China Council 2012 Book Prize for his translation of Alexis Wright's Carpentaria; and, the Australia-China Council Golden Medallion for his significant contribution to Australian Literature.
Professor Li received a Doctor of Letters degree from University of Sydney in April, 2014. He is also a Visiting Professor of Beijing Foreign Studies University, a Member of the Writers' Association of China, and a Council Member of the Australian Studies Association of China, since 2008. In 2018, he produced a series of 'Ten Volumes of Australian Literature'.
In 2024, Li was based at the School of Foreign Chinese of Peking Universe.
Source: Crossings : Bulletin of the International Australian Studies Association 12.1 (2007)
