Stephen Mitchell is an acclaimed poet and translator who has studied at Amherst, the University of Paris, and Yale. He has translated Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry, the Book of Job, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Some of these are not true translations from the original text, but rather poetic interpretations that use existing translations to gather the meaning of the original text.

Mitchell's work is strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism. He was an early student of the Korean Zen teacher Seung Sahn, and edited a book of his teachings: Dropping Ashes on the Buddha ISBN 0802130526 .

Mitchell is married to the self-help pioneer Byron Katie, and wrote the introduction for her first book, Loving What Is.

Books

• The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Vintage reissue 1989, ISBN 0679722017
• Tao Te Ching, Perennial 1992, ISBN 0060812451
• The Book of Job, Harper Perennial 1992, ISBN 0060969598
• The Gospel According to Jesus, Harper Perennial reprint 1993, ISBN 0060923210
• The Enlightened Mind, (an anthology of mystical prose from diverse world traditions), Perennial reprint 1993, ISBN 0060923202
• The Enlightened Heart, (an anthology of mystical poetry), Harper Perennial 1993, ISBN 006092053X
• A Book of Psalms: Selected and Adapted from the Hebrew, Perennial reissue 1994, ISBN 0060924705
• Genesis: A New Translation, Harper Collins Publishers 1996, ISBN 0060172495, paperback ISBN 0060928565
• Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation, Three Rivers Press 2002, ISBN 0609810340
• Jesus: What He Really Said and Did, Harpertempest 2002, ISBN 0064490092
• Gilgamesh: A New English Version, Free Press 2004, ISBN 074326164X