Maurice Maeterlinck (1862?1949) was a Belgian playwright and poet who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911. He wrote numerous plays including Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), which later inspired an opera by Debussy. Richard Howard has translated over 150 works from the French and published 13 collections of his own poetry. In 1983 he received the American Book Award for his translation of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, and in 1970 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He teaches in the Writing Division at Columbia University.