Recent Posts
Richard Lea at the Guardian newspaper (UK) has some new "Original Writing" on China in the Books online section.
On 25 August 2008: China reflected: Hari Kunzru kicks off a series of new short stories by Chinese and British writers with the tale of some very partisan pandas. Those of us who attended the Moganshan Literary Translation workshops in March 2008 will find that Hari (who also attended as a visiting writer) has set his lovely and funny story in a place which uncannily resembles Moganshan!
And two weeks earlier, on 11 August, my translated excerpt from Jia Pingwa's new novel Happy (Gaoxing) appeared. Lets hope that features like this attract publishers' attention...
By Nicky Harman, August 26, 10:56a.m.
Well worth a look is Joel Martinsen's August 14th post on Danwei.org ("How the Nazis brought about the end of the Cultural Revolution"), which examines the political and historical background to Chinese translations of works by Trotsky, William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) and others.
The post includes a full translation of Luo Xuehui's article in China Newsweek. Here is an excerpt from Joel's preface:
The translations belonged to a category known as "grey books" (灰皮书), translations of foreign political and sociological texts not intended for public circulation. Limited-circulation translations of foreign literary works were known as "yellow books" (黄皮书). In the early 1960s, when China was engaged in an ideological battle with the Soviet Union, its party leadership needed to read "revisionist" works in order to understand and combat the arguments of the opposition.
The books and their translators were addressed by two Chinese newsweeklies this summer. In a lengthy New Century Weekly feature on the genesis and influence of yellow and grey books, Zheng Yifan explained how the "grey book" project grew out of a mission to translate the works of Trotsky into Chinese...
Read the full post on Danwei
By Cindy Carter, August 18, 4:16p.m.
Poorly Managed, Occasional Bright Spots
I could swear those long-legged seraphs were headhunted from the professional model community in Shanghai and Dalian, but what do I know?
The “18th World Congress of the International Federation of Translators” (Shanghai August 4-6) featured dozens of seminars with over 200 speakers from all over the world—and an opening banquet starring those women, performing what was billed as a Tibetan folk dance.
My neighbors, two immaculately coiffed, fluent English-speaking Iraqi women in China for the first time, were blown away by the spectacle. They couldn’t have cared less where those “Tibetans” came from!
But I wasn’t in town for the dancing. I paid RMB4,000 for entry to the conferences + RMB1,660 for a round-trip air ticket between Shenzhen-Shanghai + RMB800 for 3 nights in a hotel, in the hopes of hearing a host of speakers deliver their (hopefully unique!) presentations.
In the event, most of the seminars were rather disappointing, because:
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Each speaker was strictly limited to 15 minutes, and most Q&A were put off for 30-45 minutes, i.e., until all speakers had first presented;
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Many speakers chose to read out their research papers word-for-word, projecting text-heavy PowerPoint slides virtually identical with their scripts;
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Ironically, only a handful of seminars—this was an international translation conference!—offered simultaneous interpretation;
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There were often 10 or so seminars on at one time on two different floors of the meeting center, each featuring 3-6 speakers, but no obvious way of learning when a given speaker would appear. No list outside the door of each seminar venue, for instance, stating the names of the speakers, their topic, and the order of their appearance.
Nor was much attention given to informing us which scheduled speakers would be absent. I learned only belatedly that Turkish scholar Bengu Ergin would not be presenting “What do we observe in the Chinese translation of Orhan Pamuk’s novel, ‘My Name is Red’?” What a pity!
Ah, well. Here’s a quick list of topics/speakers/e-mail addresses for those topics that might be of interest to Chinese-English translators: “法国对中国现代作家选择之思考” (高方, gaofangparis8@126.com); “Creating the Self-image of New China: ‘Outward’ Literary Translation in the First 17 Years of Socialist China (Ma Shi-Kui, mashikui01@sina.com); “The Chinese-English Parallel Corpus of ‘Hong Lou Meng’: A Working Report” (Liu Ze-Quan, zqliu@ysu.edu.cn); “A Dialectical view of ‘Chinese’ and ‘Non-Chinese’ Features in Chinese Translation Theory” (Tan Zai-Xi, than@hkbu.edu.hk); “A Translation Anthologist’s Reflections on the Ideological Complexities of Translating China” (Martha Cheung, marthach@hkbu.edu.hk).
By Bruce Humes, August 10, 12:37a.m.
On August 7th 2008, The PEN American Center held an event in New York City in support of over 40 Chinese writers and journalists who have been detained, imprisoned, harassed or prevented from publishing their writings in China. See the PEN American website for more information about the featured authors and readings (includes audio recordings, Chinese and English texts and photos).
Although this was not included in the readings, I'd like to add this couplet by Li Rui (former secretary to Mao Zedong) written during his eight years in Beijing's Qincheng Prison:
How does a life in letters make a prison?
I've surpassed my own self-criticism.
By Cindy Carter, August 9, 6:05a.m.
Han Dong's book 《扎根》 (to be published in 2009 as Banished!, has been long-listed for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.
There were a number of things which convinced me I wanted to translate Banished! I liked the fact you can read the novel at different levels. He describes village life carefully, sometimes lovingly, but there is an underlying sense of political tension. There is humor, often scatological, but the depiction towards the end of the book of Tao, the frustrated writer, is bitter and painful. The language is occasionally lyrical but usually appears quite plain; then again, there are parts which are enigmatic to say the least, especially when they come from the unnamed ‘I’ voice. The emotional relationships are understated, but there is real warmth in the adults’ protectiveness of the child, young Tao, and the latter’s feelings for his father. I hope that this excerpt at least gives a flavor of some of these qualities.
More…
By Nicky Harman, August 1, 10:01a.m.
In the run-up to the Olympics, PEN is holding an event centered around China's imprisoned or threatened writers and journalists. This will take place in New York on August 7, at The New School's Tishman Auditorium. From the press release:
On August 7, the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, PEN American Center will honor the more than 40 writers and journalists currently being held in Chinese prisons for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Acclaimed American writers will come together on stage at this special event to break the silence—or what has been called the Great Firewall—that threatens the work and lives of Chinese writers.
Edward Albee, Russell Banks, Philip Gourevitch, Jessica Hagedorn, Hari Kunzru, Rick Moody, Martha Southgate, Francine Prose, and others will read new and previously untranslated statements and writings by several of the jailed writers and other dissidents and members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center.
On the off chance that anyone's there and attending, send a report or a photo, will you?
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 1, 1:15a.m.
My our window on the world is awfully small… It sounds as though there's a fascinating discussion on translation in the latest issue of Calque, a journal of literature in translation, but we wouldn't know if it weren't for Three Percent, who have posted a bit of it:
"To tell the truth, I suspect that readers who can compare translations and originals actually tend to be worse judges of the quality of a translation than people who are unable to read the original. [. . .]
"Of course, readers who can access both the original and the translation are able to find obvious mistakes, and that’s something only they can do, and that can be important. But surely that’s not what we mean when we ask what distinguishes good translations from bad? We’re interested in something that runs deeper, I would hope—not something so superficial that any old multilingual reader can come along and point it out after a hasty comparison of the two texts. [. . .]"
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 30, 12:40p.m.
The Guardian continues its foray into Chinese letters with a brief reading and audio interview with Zhu Wen:
"I am a quite ordinary person. Ordinary means, I think, [someone who] can't express what he feels. In China it's rare that people could do that, they keep silent. Speaking out, and facing the reality of China, is a writer's job. You must do it.
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 30, 12:05p.m.
These kinds of topics turn you on?
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Workable standards for translating Chinese classics into English
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How to showcase literary translations at international book fairs
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Foreignization in Chinese-English translation and its role in cross-cultural communications
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新疆民族语言工作和翻译概况
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法国对中国现代作家翻译选择思考
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Translating menus from a sociolinguistic and cross-cultural perspective
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Role of the literary translator: Case-study from Japan’s Meiji period
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中日翻译：诗歌的重写与文化越境
If so, you might want to be in Shanghai at the XVIII Congress of the Federation of International Translators during August 4-6.
See the full agenda of seminars.
By Bruce Humes, July 29, 2:24a.m.
Claire Li's post on the Make Do Studios website analyzes some of the reasons Bertelsmann AG's business model failed in China:
"Why did Bertelsmann's China business fail? Some people say it has to do with the prevalence of pirated books here. But obviously, people who hold this view have not caught on to the state of the book market in China nowadays [...]
"Bertelsmann continued opening bookstores around the country without realizing how greatly the internet would influence people's shopping habits. People buy books on Dangdang and Joyo for its wide selection, low discounts, fast delivery, its payment-upon-receipt system, and freedom from any membership requirements like having to buy a book each month. Bertelsmann, by contrast, not only had a limited choice of books and poorer discounts, but it added another requirement last year that its platinum members had to spend RMB 299 per year or else be bumped down to a lower level. An understandable amendment, since the book club's overhead is high, but nobody wants to be forced to spend money."
read the complete article
Update: Another take on Bertelsmann's China venture (from Chen Gang, a journalist at China Publishing Today)
By Cindy Carter, July 28, 8:51p.m.
Ha Jin Wants to Visit China:
"Jin, who teaches English at Boston University, said Saturday he's interested in visiting China but is discouraged by the difficulty of publishing Chinese translations of his English books in the mainland. He said he also applied to become a visiting professor at the elite Peking University in Beijing in 2004 but never heard back."
Gao Xingjian doesn't:
"Instead, the writer's focus is his new life in France, a country he had visited several times as an interpreter before his exile. He now has French citizenship and said he had no trouble integrating into French society, something he attributes to having grown up with Western culture."
A Defense of Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem:
"Also welcome, in my view, is Jiang Rong’s willingness to merge his tale of environmental destruction with an open discussion of Han Chinese cultural and political imperialism."
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 26, 1:33p.m.
Has it been a year already? The long list for the 2008 Man Asia Literary Prize has been announced; only three of the twenty titles are Chinese. In our corner:
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Banished!, by Han Dong, translated by our very own Nicky Harman!
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Leave Me Alone, Chengdu (成都，今夜请将我遗忘), by Murong Xuecun.
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Brothers, by Yu Hua.
The qualification rules for the competition state that the books need to be submitted in English manuscript, but the English version must not have been published yet. Banished! and Brothers have publication dates, but I hadn't heard that anyone was translating Leave Me Alone, Chengdu. Murong Xuecun's appearance on the list is interesting – he was one of the early internet authors, writing vaguely adolescent stories of youth and urban anomie, but he's taken on a steadily more 'serious' tone. I haven't read Chengdu, but I head it's pretty good. Anyway, if anyone knows who translated either Brothers or Chengdu, leave a comment! The shortlist arrives September 1st, the final winner to be announced at the end of September.
Via Three Percent.
Update: Murong Xuecun's book was translated by Harvey Thomlinson, and there's a lengthy excerpt online here.
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 26, 1:24a.m.
Catherine Sampson, author and longtime China resident, picks her ten favorite China novels (all in English translation, or originally in English).
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 23, 4:21a.m.
Yes, Li Er is an undeniably talented writer. Just this shade of forty, his literary inventions are unrivaled in China, and have drawn favorable comparisons to Pynchon and Gaddis... but if the man ever invites you to dinner, you'd better run like hell.
More…
By Cindy Carter, July 20, 4:12p.m.
New Comments
on Li Hongqi's "Lucky Bastard"
I just saw in a Paris exhibition called "Dans la ville chinoise" five short films including an intriguing one by
posted by Brigitte Duzan
on Post-Mortem: FIT Congress 2008
Intrepid Bruce: one of these days, we will get funding and be able to compensate you for your time and
posted by Cindy Carter
on PEN: Silenced Writers Speak
We might be able to get some video of the event after its over, in which case we could post
posted by Eric Abrahamsen
on Because Han Han is Too Damn Old
Please give us more info on good, younger writers! I always feel that although the publishing industry has grown so
posted by Anna GC
Please give us more info on good, younger writers! I always feel that although the publishing industry has grown so
posted by Anna GC
on FIT World Congress
I've never been. But I wish I'd known about this one earlier - if I had I would have found
posted by Anna GC