He is the translator of both novels and short stories by many Spanish American authors, including Labyrinths: Selected Writings of Jorge Luis Borges, edited and translated with James Irby (New Directions, 1962), and Adolfo Bioy Casares's celebrated novel Diary of the War of the Pig (McGraw-Hill, 1972). Labyrinths was the first collection of Borges's work to appear in English. Yates has published his own fiction, poetry, articles, and book reviews, as well as translations, in many periodicals, including the Atlantic, Holiday, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post.  He was a Fulbright Scholar and visiting lecturer in Argentina in 1962–63,  1964–65, 1967–68, and 1970, and, with the support of a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship, is preparing a memoir/biography of Borges drawn from his long relationship with the Argentine writers.