Arthur Richard Valentine Cooper (1916–1988) was a British codebreaker, who became a translator of Chinese literature after retirement. He is best remembered for his translations of the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

poets

Li Bai Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du F ...

and

Du Fu Du Fu (; 712–770) was a Tang dynasty poet and politician. Along with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets.Ebrey, 103. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as ...

, but is also known for his original research on the early Chinese script.

Life

Arthur Richard Valentine Cooper was born to Anglo-Irish parents in 1916. He developed an early interest in languages, learning Icelandic before turning to Japanese and Chinese. He joined the

Government Code and Cypher School Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...

(GC&CS) in 1938, and in 1939 he was sent out to Hong Kong to work at the

Far East Combined Bureau The Far East Combined Bureau, an outstation of the British Government Code and Cypher School, was set up in Hong Kong in March 1935, to monitor Japanese, and also Chinese and Russian (Soviet) intelligence and radio traffic. Later it moved to Singa ...

, a GC&CS outpost which moved to Singapore after the outbreak of WWII. Cooper learnt Chinese and Japanese and stayed in Singapore almost until the British surrender. He and several colleagues had been monitoring Japanese wireless transmissions to give warning of Japanese air raids. They escaped on 11 February 1942 and made their way to Australia. There Cooper spent several months working at the Special Intelligence Bureau in Melbourne before returning to GC&CS, which had moved to

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

in the summer of 1939. He wrote a textbook of written Japanese for wartime use and taught Japanese at Bletchley Park. In 1947 he returned to Australia where he worked as a codebreaker seconded to the Australian government. In 1953 he returned to GC&CS, which had now been renamed

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...

. He retired in 1968, and thereafter devoted himself to Chinese language and literature. His work ''On the Creation of the Chinese Script'' (1978) revealed great insight. He also taught, one of his students being

Michael Loewe Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe (born 2 November 1922) is a British Sinologist, historian, and writer who has authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese as well as the history of ancient and ear ...

.Michael Loewe, Bing: From Farmer's Son to Magistrate in Han China, (Hackett Publishing, 2011), p.ix.

Writings

* ''Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems Selected and Translated with an Introduction and Notes'' (Penguin Books, 1973) * ''The creation of the Chinese script'' (London: China Society, 1978) * ''Deep Woods' Business: Uncollected Translations from the Chinese'' (

Wellsweep Press The Wellsweep Press was a UK-based independent publishing house, specialising in the publication of literary translation from Chinese. It was founded by poet and literary translator John Cayley in the 1980s, and published books from 1988 through th ...

, 1990) * ''The Other Greek: An Introduction to Chinese and Japanese Characters, Their History and Influence'',

Imre Galambos Imre Galambos (Chinese name 高奕睿, pinyin Gāo Yìruì; born 1967) is a Hungarian Sinologist and Tangutologist who specialises in the study of medieval Chinese and Tangut manuscripts from Dunhuang. He is a professor of Chinese Studies at the ...

ed. (Brill, 2018)

External links

Archival material relating to Arthur Cooper in the Chinese University of Hong Kong LibraryArthur Cooper biography in Poetry Magazines

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Arthur British sinologists Chinese–English translators Literary translators 1916 births 1988 deaths 20th-century British translators