Edward Hetzel Schafer (23 August 1913 – 9 February 1991) was an American sinologist noted for his expertise on the Tang dynasty, and was a professor of Chinese at University of California, Berkeley for 35 years. Schafer's most notable works include The Golden Peaches of Samarkand and The Vermilion Bird, which both explore China's interactions with new cultures and regions during the Tang dynasty.

Edward H. Schafer was born on 23 August 1913 in Seattle, Washington. After completing secondary school, Schafer followed his family to Los Angeles, California, where they sought better economic prospects. The financial hardships brought about by the Great Depression prevented Schafer's family from sending him to university, and he spent seven years working at a wholesale grocery to save up the money required. Although he was unable to attend university during that time, Schafer spent as much time as he could reading and studying at the Los Angeles Public Library, even managing to teach himself the basics of ancient Egyptian.

Schafer was eventually able to enter UCLA as an undergraduate student and spent three years studying there before transferring to University of California, Berkeley for his final year, graduating with a B.A. degree in anthropology. After graduating from Berkeley, Schafer won a grant to study Chinese and was admitted to the University of Hawaii as a graduate student, earning his M.A. in 1940 with a thesis entitled "Persian Merchants in China During the T'ang Dynasty". Schafer then entered Harvard University where he began work on his Ph.D, but his studies were interrupted in December 1941 by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' subsequent entry into World War II. During the war Schafer worked as a linguist for the Office of Naval Intelligence and was able to master Japanese, which he had begun studying at Harvard.

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