Olivia Milburn

Olivia Milburn (born 1976) is a sinologist, author and literary translator who specialises in Chinese cultural history and in Chinese minority groups.

Milburn is a professor at Seoul National University's Department of Chinese Language and Literature.

Milburn grew up in a multilingual family living in eight different countries, and became interested in Chinese literature as a teenager, after reading a translation of the Dream of the Red Chamber. She completed a bachelor's degree at St Hilda's College, University of Oxford in 1998, a master's at Downing College, University of Cambridge in 1999, and a doctorate in classical Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2003. After working as a lecturer at the University of London, she joined Seoul National University in 2008.

Milburn has authored several books including Cherishing Antiquity: The Cultural Construction of an Ancient Chinese Kingdom, Urbanization in Early and Medieval China: Gazetteers for the City of Suzhou, and The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan.

She is also a literary Chinese-to-English translator. Her translations include the bestselling novel Decoded by Mai Jia (co-translated by Christopher Payne), which caught her attention because of a family connection: her grandfather was a codebreaker in World War II, like the book's protagonist. Her translation has been praised for its "tightly wrought aphorisms" and for "the classic beauty and elegant taste of the language".

In 2018, Milburn's translation work was recognised by the Chinese government with a Special Book Award of China, which honours contributions to bridging cultures and fostering understanding.

Selected works

• The Glory of Yue: An Annotated Translation of the Yuejue shu. Leiden: EJ Brill, 2010. ISBN 9789047443995.
• Cherishing Antiquity: The Cultural Construction of an Ancient Chinese Kingdom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2013. ISBN 9780674726680.
• Urbanization in Early and Medieval China: Gazetteers for the City of Suzhou. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. ISBN 9780295994604.
• The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan. Leiden: EJ Brill, 2016. ISBN 9789004309661.

Selected translations

• (With Christopher Payne) Mai Jia, Decoded. London: Allan Lane, 2014; and New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. ISBN 9781250062352.
• (With Christopher Payne) Mai Jia, In the Dark. London: Penguin, 2015. ISBN 9780141391458.
• (With Christopher Payne) Jiang Zilong, Empires of Dust. London: ACA Publishing, 2019. ISBN 9781910760338.