William Weaver, 1923-2003, was an American literary translator and critic. Weaver was born on July 24, 1923 in Washington, D.C. to Henry Byrne and Beatrice Weaver. He graduated summa cum laude with his BA from Princeton University in 1946. Weaver withdrew from Princeton in good standing on November 16, 1942 in order to enter the Armed Forces of the United States, where he served as an ambulance driver in North Africa and Italy during World War II. He continued to live primarily in Italy after the end of the war. Prior to conducting his postgraduate work at the University of Rome in 1949, Weaver was an English instructor at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. In 1990, he returned to the United States and accepted the position of professor of literature at Bard College. He died on November 12, 2013.

Weaver is best known as a distinguished translator of Italian fiction, including works by Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Giorgio Bassani, Primo Levi, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and Italo Svevo, among many others. In addition to prose works, he has translated Italian poetry and written major monographs on Puccini and Verdi. Weaver has been granted many awards for his translations; among them are the Translation Prize from the P.E.N. American Center for the English translation of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose in 1984, the National Book Award for translation for Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics in 1969, and the John Florio Translation Prize from the Translation Association for the translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's novel A Violent Life in 1968. He also received honorary degrees from the University of Leicester in the UK and Trinity College in Connecticut.