Walter Martin is a poet and translator. Born in Texas in 1943, he read French at Stanford, continued his studies in Paris and taught English in Nepal. He lives near San Francisco. For the past twenty-five years, he has been owner of Chimaera, a bookshop in Palo Alton, California, which specialises in poetry and music. He is at work on the Emaux et Camees of Theophile Gautier.