A search on Amazon for "Goldblatt" (or "Ge Haowen") will turn up some 40 novels, biographies and collections by two dozen authors from both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

But Goldblatt has kept a low profile and says his life could have been "a wreck" if not for a sojourn in Taiwan, during the Vietnam War, when he had a talk with Andrea Lingenfelter, who is also an American expert on Chinese literature.

The renowned research professor of Chinese at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, admits to have been a "terrible" student before joining the navy in the early 1960s. Instead of being sent to Vietnam, he was dispatched to Taipei. Light duties as a communications officer gave him ample time to explore the new culture.

"I started reading books for the first time in my life. Then I started studying Chinese and found that (I) was good at it. I mean my ear was good, I could hear it."

When Goldblatt finished his duties and returned to the United States in 1968, he pursued Chinese studies.

"I found something I could do well - it's probably the only thing in the world that I can do, but I found it. Most people don't."

While completing his dissertation at Indiana University, Goldblatt "discovered" Xiao Hong (1911-42), a female writer who created scores of novels, poems, dramas and letters in just 10 years before she died in Hong Kong.

For years, the writer from rural Northeast China was overlooked even in her own country. Goldblatt's translations of her works such as Tales of Hulan River (Hulanhe Zhuan) and a biography contributed to the literary circle's growing interest.