Willis Barnstone, born in 1927, is an American poet, scholar of religion, and translator with a distinguished academic and literary career. He has translated a wide array of international authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Pablo Neruda, and Wang Wei, as well as significant religious texts like the New Testament and ancient philosophical fragments. His extensive education includes degrees from prestigious universities and studies abroad in Mexico, France, and London, with specialized training in Chinese language studies. Barnstone's teaching career spanned various institutions, including Indiana University, where he held a professorship in Comparative Literature and Spanish and initiated interdisciplinary programs. He also taught in Greece during the Greek Civil War and in Argentina during the Dirty War, and was in China during the Cultural Revolution.

His work includes significant anthologies that span global literary traditions, such as "A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now" and "Literatures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America." These collections highlight diverse voices across historical periods and geographical regions. Barnstone's translation of "The Restored New Testament" is a notable scholarly endeavor, aiming to present scripture in a way that resonates poetically, restoring original names and rendering biblical texts in verse. He also had a significant literary collaboration with Jorge Luis Borges, working with him on translations and documenting their intellectual friendship.

Willis Barnstone's extensive translation work encompasses a broad spectrum of global literature and religious texts. He has rendered into English the works of prominent poets and writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Antonio Machado, Rainer Maria Rilke, Pedro Salinas, Pablo Neruda, and Wang Wei. His scholarly pursuits also extend to ancient philosophy, with translations of fragments by Heraclitus, and classical poetry, including Sappho. A significant contribution to religious scholarship is his translation of "The Restored New Testament," which aims to present canonical and non-canonical texts with restored original names and in poetic verse, including the Gnostic Gospels of Thomas, Mary, and Judas. His translation of Revelation is described as "the great epic poem of the New Testament."

Barnstone has co-edited ambitious anthologies that survey world literature across vast historical and cultural landscapes. "A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now" features female poets from ancient Sumeria to contemporary America, spanning every continent and literary epoch. His anthology "Literatures of Asia, Africa, and Latin America" offers a comprehensive overview, beginning with the Vedic period in Asia and ancient Egyptian texts in North Africa, extending through to 20th-century writers and oral traditions from Sub-Saharan Africa and pre-Columbian Americas. These collections, often co-edited with his children Aliki Barnstone and Tony Barnstone, aim to provide a broad, inclusive perspective on global literary heritage.

A significant aspect of Barnstone's career was his close literary relationship with the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. They met in 1968, leading to a collaboration on translating Borges's sonnets into English in Buenos Aires during the 1970s. Barnstone also contributed to documenting Borges's life and work, including a memoir that recounts the genesis of a Borges story inspired by a dream during a period of political unrest in Argentina. Their shared intellectual pursuits led to joint lectures at various universities, documented in "Borges at Eighty: Conversations."

“In an achievement remarkable by almost any standard, and surely one of the events of the year in publishing, renowned poet and scholar Barnstone has created a new and lavish translation—almost transformation—of the canonical and noncanonical books associated with the New Testament.”

“The high bar Barnstone has set for himself is the creation of an English-language Scripture that will move poets much as the 1611 King James Version moved Milton and Blake.”