Sidney Shapiro
Sidney Shapiro (沙博理, Dec. 23, 1915 – Oct. 18, 2014) is a famed US-born translator and author who was one of the few Westerners to gain Chinese citizenship. He lived in Beijing for over a half century and was better known in China by his Chinese name Sha Boli.
Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1915 to a Jewish family, Shapiro attained a law degree at St John’s University in 1937 and joined the US army in November 1941.
In 1942, he applied for a special army program developing translators in foreign languages for use in possible expeditionary forces abroad. Although he asked for the French program, he was urged to study Chinese.
After the war, he continued to pursue the Chinese language, first at Columbia University and then at Yale University. He became fascinated by Chinese history and culture and decided to go to China to learn more.
He arrived in Shanghai in 1947, quickly ran out of money, and was forced to take up the practice of law, which, he said, he had "traveled 10,000 miles to avoid." He soon met his future wife, Feng Zi (Phoenix), one of China’s most well-known actresses and woman writers. They married in 1948.
Shapiro did not visit the U.S. again until 1971. He remained in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and became a Chinese citizen in 1963, an honor reserved only for a select few foreigners judged to have performed special services for China.
In 1983, he became a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top advisory body to the central government.
For nearly 50 years, Shapiro worked as an expert in the state-run China International Publishing Group (CIPG), rounding off the English versions of modern Chinese literary works such as "The Family" and "The Immense Forest and Snowfield."
He was best known for his English translations of the Chinese classic novel "Outlaws of the Marsh," as well as works by the more modern authors Ba Jin and Mao Dun.
He received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation by the Translators Association of China (TAC) in 2010, becoming the first laureate born outside China.
His research on the history of the Chinese Jews was published in America and China under the title of "Jews in Old China: Studies by Chinese Scholars." It was translated into Hebrew and published in Israel, and later translated into Chinese.
His own works include "The Law and the Lore of Chinese Criminal Justice," "Ma Haide: The Saga of American Doctor George Hatem in China" and "A Sampler of Chinese Literature from the Ming Dynasty to Mao Zedong," not to mention his autobiography "I Chose China."
He died in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2014, at the age of 98.
