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, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

poets

Li Bai Li Bai (, 701–762), Literary and colloquial readings, also pronounced Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty and in Chinese history as a whole. He and hi ...

and

Du Fu Du Fu (; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. Together with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai, Du is often considered one of the greatest Chinese poets of his time. His greatest ambition was to serve ...

, 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 The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was a British signals intelligence agency set up in 1919. During the First World War, the British Army and Royal Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (initially known as R ...

(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 Sing ...

, 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 Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...

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 (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 United Kingdom. Primar ...

. 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 (2 November 1922 – 1 January 2025) was a British historian, Sinologist, and writer who authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese as well as the history of ancien ...

.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 t ...

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

Imre Galambos Imre Galambos ( zh, c=高奕睿, p=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 Professor Emeritus of Chinese at the University ...

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