An Wei, a scholar and translator, first met Helen Foster Snow during her visit to China in 1978, when he was assigned as her interpreter. Their encounter quickly developed into a lifelong friendship. Moved by her work and story, An Wei took on the task of translating Helen Foster’s writings into Chinese and, during a 1985 stay in Hartford, Connecticut, gained access to her personal archive.

An Wei graduated with a degree in English in 1966. Amid the political turmoil of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, he was appointed an English interpreter at the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shaanxi Provincial Government. At the time, China received very few foreign visitors, and much of An Wei’s work involved studying Mao Zedong’s writings in English. In 1970, he was allowed to observe American journalist Edgar Snow’s visit to Yan’an from a distance because only senior cadres could attend these high-level missions. Despite the lack of direct interaction, An Wei was inspired to read more of Snow’s work. In 1971, after being reassigned to the Yan’an History Museum, he encountered additional English-language materials about China, including Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China and Helen Foster Snow’s Inside Red China.

By 1978, when Helen Foster Snow was preparing to return to China for a short trip, An Wei had resumed his position in the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office. Although he was not the first interpreter selected by officials, Helen Foster specifically requested his assistance due to his fluency in English and knowledge of revolutionary history. This request allowed them to travel together and marked the beginning of a deeper intellectual and personal connection.

Their correspondence continued after the trip, with Helen frequently asking An Wei to help publish her writings in China. In 1982, during a Chinese delegation’s visit to Minnesota, the group briefly met Helen Foster in her Madison home. An Wei’s access to her personal papers came during his residency as a Visiting Scholar at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, from September 1985 to September 1986. During that year, he visited her almost weekly and worked closely with her manuscripts. It was during this period that he also rediscovered the letters he had written to her, which he later published in Chinese.

An Wei served as a translator during numerous high-level diplomatic missions, including visits by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He has translated and published 18 books and more than 100 articles in both Chinese and international publications.

(Based on An Wei’s own account of his relationship with Helen Foster Snow in An Wei Wenji, 2013.)