He has also translated Louis Cha's wuxia novel The Deer and the Cauldron (highly abridged in 28 chapters) and a selection of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio.

The son of a career diplomat, Leslie Mackay Minford, he grew up in Venezuela, Argentina and Egypt, before attending Horris Hill School, Newbury, Berkshire, and then Winchester College (1958–1963), where he studied Ancient Greek and Latin literature.

He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 1980, under the supervision of Dr Pierre Ryckmans and Professor Liu Ts'un-yan.

In 1982, he joined the staff of the Research Centre for Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, working closely with Stephen Soong, 宋淇, and eventually taking over from him as editor of the journal Renditions.

This series consisted of Liu Yichang's stream-of-consciousness novel The Drunkard, two volumes of selected poetry and fiction by P. K. Leung (Lotus Leaves and Dragons), Xi Xi's contemporary book of biji sketches The Teddy Bear Chronicles, the personal memoir Ordinary Days by Leo Ou-fan Lee and Esther Lee, and a compendium of Hong Kong essays from 1840 to the present, The Best China.