Willis Barnstone (1927- ) is one of America's most prolific and highly regarded translators and poets. He has spent extended periods in Mexico, Spain, France, England, Greece, and China. He began writing poetry when he was twenty years old; his first published poem appeared in the Anglo-French periodical Points. His first book of poems published in the United States was From This White Island, reflecting on his time on an island in Greece. One of Barnstone's closest friends and mentors was author Jorge Luis Borges. In an essay written for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Barnstone confides, 'I see poetry, fiction, and scholarship as Borges did. They are the work of a writer and move into each other, separated by typography.' He is a Guggenheim Fellow and two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and is presently Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington.