John Balaban is the author of eleven books of poetry and prose, including four volumes which together have won The Academy of American Poets' Lamont prize, a National Poetry Series Selection, and two nominations for the National Book Award. His Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems won the 1998 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. He is the 2001-2004 National Artist for the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. In 2003, he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

In addition to writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, he is a translator of Vietnamese poetry, and a past president of the American Literary Translators Association.

His books on Vietnam include Ca Dao Vietnam:Vietnamese Folk Poetry, Vietnam: The Land We Never Knew (with the photographer, Geoffrey Clifford), Remembering Heaven's Face, a memoir, and Vietnam: A Traveler's Literary Companion (co-edited with Nguyen Qui Duc), as well as his acclaimed Spring Essence: The Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong.

Balaban is Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

For information about Vietnamese in the ancient script: www.nomfoundation.org