Payne, Robert, 1911-1983

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne was born on Dec. 4, 1911 in Saltash, Cornwall, England; came to the US in 1946; attended Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa (1929-30), Univ. of Capetown (1931-32), Univ. of Liverpool (1933-36), Univ. of Munich (1937), and Sorbonne, Univ. of Paris (1938); was shipwright's apprentice, Liverpool (1932-33), shipwright (1939-41) and armament officer (1941), Singapore Naval Base; translator, British Ministry of Information in Chungking, China (1941-42); professor of English poetry and lecturer in naval architecture (1943-46); head of English dept., Alabama College, Montevallo (1949-54); war correspondent in Spain (1938), and correspondent for the Times of London in Changsha, China (1942); was founding director of Columbia Univ. Translation Center; wrote more than 100 books in a variety of subjects; publications include Love and peace (1945), Forever China (1945), China awake (1947), The rose tree (1947), A house in Peking : a novel of 18th-century China (1956), and Lawrence of Arabia : a triumph (1962); he died on Feb. 18, 1983.

Author, biographer, poet, translator.

Biography

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne was born on December 4, 1911 in Saltash, Cornwall, England; came to the U.S. in 1946; attended Diocesan College, Rondebosch, South Africa (1929-30), University of Capetown (1931-32), University of Liverpool (1933-36), University of Munich (1937), and Sorbonne, University of Paris (1938); was shipwright's apprentice, Liverpool (1932-33), shipwright (1939-41) and armament officer (1941), Singapore Naval Base; translator, British Ministry of Information in Chungking, China (1941-42); professor of English poetry and lecturer in naval architecture (1943-46); head of English deptartment, Alabama College, Montevallo (1949-54); war correspondent in Spain (1938), and correspondent for the Times of London in Changsha, China (1942); was founding director of Columbia University Translation Center; wrote more than 100 books in a variety of subjects; publications include Love and peace (1945), Forever China (1945), China awake (1947), The rose tree (1947), A house in Peking: a novel of 18th-century China (1956), and Lawrence of Arabia: a triumph (1962); he died on February 18, 1983.