Chinese Literature in Translation
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BEIJING — Three weeks after Han Han, China’s most prominent blogger, published three controversial blog posts in which he casts a sullen eye on Revolution, Democracy and Freedom, the online debate has slid into absurdity.
The latest nonsense came from Mai Tian, another popular blogger, who asserted that Han Han could not possibly be the author of his blog posts, given that he was racing cars on some of the same days they were published.
Han Han — novelist, racecar driver, and by the numbers the world’s most-read blogger — is a spokesman for youthful discontent in China. His caustic commentary on current events gives voice to popular outrage at official corruption and abuse of power, while avoiding direct attacks on the government that might result in censorship of his blog. The three essays mark his first foray into taking straightforward political positions.
Most of Han Han’s detractors, whether domestic or foreign, seem to be objecting to his preference for reform over revolution: his three essays are relentlessly skeptical about spirited resistance, essentially denying the heroism of dissidents. Further comments on the Chinese people’s lack of civic spirit and the hopelessness of opposing the government have made the essays even less popular.
Zhu Yufu: What Kind of Poem is that Subversive?
Reuters reported on January 19, 2012:
Chinese authorities have indicted veteran dissident Zhu Yufu [朱虞夫] on subversion charges for writing a poem urging people to gather to defend their freedoms, his lawyer said. He is the latest activist to face such charges.
Zhu, 60, from the eastern city of Hangzhou, was arrested last April for “inciting subversion of state power”. No trial date has been set, his lawyer, Li Dunyong, said on Tuesday.
“The main reason for the indictment was a poem he had written calling for people to gather. He had written the poem around the same time there was chaos [in the Middle East],” Li said. “He believes in freedom of expression.”
To read the original Chinese poem and an inspiring rendition in English by A.E. Clark, follow this link. . .
How to feel like a complete noob at the Chinese internet:
Step One: Browse weibo. Notice heated discussions about something called 目田, which apparently means "eye field". Have the vague feeling that you're not getting the joke.
Step Two: Finally catch on that 目田 (eye field) is just 自由 (freedom), with bits missing.
If only the internet censors were this slow…
By Eric Abrahamsen, January 19, 2:15a.m.
Danny Hahn from the UK Translators Association would like to organise an informal get-together for practising Chinese-to-English translators in or around the bookfair. Please contact him direct: d.hahn@uea.ac.uk.
By Nicky Harman, January 18, 10:14a.m.
Following the great success of last year’s Summer School, we are delighted to announce the expanded Summer School 2012. This five-day event will take place at Birkbeck University of London (43 Gordon Square WC1H 0PD) on 9-13 July 2012. It comprises courses in translation into English from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – each language subject to a minimum group-size of five students – and an editing skills course for all. There will also be games, a competition, meet-the-publishers, and guest lectures and workshops.
By Nicky Harman, January 18, 10:10a.m.
At the Free Word Translator Residency we ran a BookclubFest where I was approached by Steve Wasserman of the Short Story Bookclub asking for a Han Dong story. The long and the short of it is that I provided The Deer Park and he recorded it. I was over the moon when I listened, and I love the picture he provided too. The story seems to acquire a whole new life of its own as it’s being read alive. This particular website provides all sorts of podcast stories for free (NB he doesn’t pay the writer/translator). There’s at least one other UK–based site I know of that does something similar. I very much like the idea, as a great alternative to printed short story collections.
By Nicky Harman, January 16, 8:40a.m.
Winning the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2009 for his novel The Boat to Redemption expanded the ambit of his influence, winning him more fans outside of China. The story of a disgraced Communist Party official, who lives on a barge, resigned to the life of a social outcast, set against the backdrop of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and seen through the eyes of his teenage son, was also a finalist for the Man Booker International in 2011 - but lost to the American heavyweight Philip Roth. "Prizes are a matter of luck," Su says, sitting under the chiaroscuro lighting of a Chinese diner in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. "True, the Man Asian win improved my popularity among English-speakers to an extent, but, at the end of the day, prizes, being the vice-chairman of Jiangsu Writers' Association - these things do not matter. I was reasonably well known in China by the time I was 26. Now I only want to concentrate on my writing."
The 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist was announced yesterday, and we were thrilled to see Cindy Carter's translation of Yan Lianke's novel Dream of Ding Village appear as the only Chinese novel. This year's shortlist is long: an unprecedented seven books. Conventional wisdom might indicate that, since three of the past four prize-winners have been Chinese, Yan Lianke has something of an institutional handicap. Let's hope that's not the case—this is a very worthy book.
By Eric Abrahamsen, January 10, 10:25p.m.
China Daily on Pathlight magazine
This is a collector's item. And not just because of its obvious historical importance. The first edition of Pathlight: New Chinese Writing magazine is a metaphor of the cooperation between Chinese and Western agencies - in this case, the influential People's Literature magazine, edited by Li Jingze and the Paper Republic team, helmed by Eric Abrahamsen - to showcase Chinese literature to the rest of the world. What an absolute gem this slender 160-page volume is, in terms of the range of voices it covers, some of them translated for the first time. Kudos to the translators for bringing out the varied textures, emotions, cadences and even the visual appeal in some of the lines penned by the featured Chinese writers represent.
“Right Bank of the Argun”: Evenki Place Names behind the Hànzì
I grew up in places with names like “Winnetka” and “Sewickley,” spellings no doubt based on mangled transliterations of old, even ancient Native American words. I vaguely recall that Sewickley meant “sweet water,” but no one seemed sure.
How many names of cities, mountains and rivers in China, I wondered, conceal their non-Han origins and meanings when written in Chinese characters (hànzì)?
Victims of corruption and injustice have no faith in the law, and yet they dream that an upright official will emerge to right their wrongs. Although a complaint mechanism is in place at all levels of Chinese government, petitioners seem to believe that the central authorities are less susceptible to corruption, and so make Beijing their destination.
Yu Hua: Chinese Autumn is no Arab Spring
When the young Mao Tse-tung agitated for revolution, he found a vivid way to get his point across to an uneducated audience: He picked up a single chopstick and snapped it in two. Then he picked up a handful of chopsticks: They would not break. Thus he showed that so long as everyone stood side by side, no force could withstand the tide of revolution. By gathering together China's scattered, indignant chopsticks, Mao finally was able to ascend Tiananmen — the Gate of Heavenly Peace — on Oct. 1, 1949, and announce the establishment of his republic.
Whether chopsticks come singly or in a handful is now an issue in China again.
Sinica podcast on Pathlight and Chinese literature
Our podcast this week is all about books and money in modern China. If you like us are tired of Lu Xun and Lao She, listen to Sinica this week as we look into the state of contemporary Chinese literature, asking what writers are hot, what writers are not, and even the more humdrum question of how much authors make these days.
Joining host Jeremy Goldkorn today are three of the most knowledgeable people from Beijing publishing circles. We're delighted to be joined by Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin books in North Asia, Eric Abrahamsen of the translation consulting company Paper Republic, as well as Alice Liu, managing editor of the newly-launched translation journal Pathlight, which features translations of works from upcoming Chinese novelists including a piece from a name longtime Popup Chinese listeners will recognize.
"21st Century Best Foreign Novel of the Year": Award Ensures "Weeds" Don't Take Root in China
"The project is to introduce quality world literature to China so that our spiritual homeland won't be abandoned or overgrown with weeds. The award-winning books represent the literary and aesthetic perspectives of Chinese foreign literature researchers and scholars."
Melanie Kirkpatrick on Yu Hua's China in Ten Words
The book's 10 chapters present images of ordinary life in China over the past four decades—from the violent, repressive years of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when the author grew up, to the upheavals and dislocations of the current economic miracle. Along the way, Mr. Yu ranges widely into politics, economics, history, culture and society. His aim, he writes, is to "clear a path through the social complexities and staggering contrasts of contemporary China."
And he succeeds marvelously. "China in Ten Words" captures the heart of the Chinese people in an intimate, profound and often disturbing way. If you think you know China, you will be challenged to think again. If you don't know China, you will be introduced to a country that is unlike anything you have heard from travelers or read about in the news.
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke – review by Yiyun Li
The first paper for my college English course, assigned by an American lawyer teaching in Beijing, was on whether China would see an Aids epidemic in the near future. It was 1992, and more than half of my classmates believed that a disease associated with irresponsible or corrupted lifestyles would not claim China. Yet in less than five years, an Aids epidemic broke out in Henan province (and in many other provinces), a result of a blood-selling enterprise established by government officials and business people, where the practice of reusing needles was common. Tens of thousands of peasants were infected; sometimes an entire village was wiped out.
Dream of Ding Village, a novel by Yan Lianke, one of the most prolific and bravest authors to come from China (periodically banned by the government), brings us a disturbing chronicle of one village's deterioration caused by "the spreading fever" (as Aids was called by the local peasants).
We've had a pleasantly large (read: slightly overwhelming) number of requests for information about Pathlight magazine, and in the interest of keeping things manageable, have created a new page dedicated to Pathlight magazine here on the site: http://paper-republic.org/pathlight/
The main thing you'll want to do there is sign up for notifications about future issues. That will be an extremely low-volume mailing list, no danger that we'll be filling up your email inbox. The other thing you can do there is gawk at the cover and table of contents. Enjoy!
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 6, 12:29a.m.
Translating in the Dark: New York Review of Books
This brings us to a paradox at the heart of translation: the text we take as inspiration is also the greatest obstacle to expression. Our own language prompts us in one direction, but the text we are trying to respect says something else, or says the same thing in a way that feels very different.
The English edition of People's Literature, the oldest magazine in new China, is out! We've named it Pathlight: New Chinese Writing, and it can be purchased on Amazon.cn, from Hong Kong and elsewhere, too.
This is China's first literary magazine edited by a bunch of foreigners, and it has cultural significance, too. Officially, this is how Xinhua presented it.
The editor-in-chief of the Chinese edition is Li Jingze (李敬泽) and his assistant is the writer Qiu Huadong (邱华栋), as many know. On the English side, myself, Eric Abrahamsen, Canaan Morse, Brendan O'Kane and Joel Martinsen have all edited, and the first edition features translations from Brian Holton, Martin Merz and Jane Weizhen Pan, Andrea Lingenfelter, Denis Mair, Lucas Klein, Fiona Sze-Lorrain etc.
By Alice Xin Liu, November 29, 1:57a.m.
Granta magazine was established in 1889 at the University of Cambridge, named after the river that later became the River Cam.
It has a reputation for being highbrow and presciently published 12 future Booker winners and various Nobel laureates.
Chutzpah! magazine (天南) was established by art curator and poet Ou Ning (欧宁), and so far has only put out four issues. Like Granta, Chutzpah! themes their issues － they are Agrarian Asia, Universal Narratives, Mapping Poetry and Vision of Eros.
On November 20th, the editor and deputy editor of Granta John Freeman and Ellah Allfrey participated in a talk with Ou Ning at One Way Street to discuss the “life and death of literary journals.”
Here is a transcript taken from my notes － readers are welcome to listen to the video linked at the bottom.
John Freeman: Granta was established more than 100 years ago by students at Cambridge. Then American Fulbright scholars restarted it.
Magazines are like blank canvases; without it artists can’t do anything.
Giving writers a space depends on who is available at the time and our ability to find them. Granta’s mission is to find the right writers. We’ve published Czech, Latin American and French writers amongst others, including Kundera, Llosa, Márquez.
By Alice Xin Liu, November 25, 12:02a.m.
Busy days for the Peony Literary Agency, who recently announced the sales of three books from two of their authors: Han Han's Youth and 1988: I Want to Talk to This World have both been bought by Simon & Schuster US, to be translated by Allan Barr and published in the second half of 2012; and Yan Geling's The Flowers of War (金陵十三钗), to Other Press, translated by Nicky Harman, to be published next January.
Congratulations!
For further information please contact Marysia Juszczakiewicz in Hong Kong at marysia@peonyliteraryagency.com, or Tina Chou in Shanghai at tina@peonyliteraryagency.com. Full press releases below:
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 24, 11:20p.m.
"Heaven – Tibet": Shinai'an Award Winner Inspired by Life in Tibet, Derrida's "Deconstruction"
Heaven – Tibet by Ning Ken (《天•藏》，宁肯著) has won the 2011 Shinai’an Literary Prize (施耐庵文学奖) awarded to a Chinese novel exhibiting an innovative style of narration, along with three other novels: Jia Pingwa’s Old Kiln (《古炉》，贾平凹著), Yan Lianke’s Me and My Father’s Generation (《我与父辈》，阎连科著), and Dong Qizhang’s Tiān gōng kāi wù (《天工开物·栩栩如真》，董启章著).
So that this shouldn't become a wall of rambling text, I'm going to arrange the rest of my observations and recollections from the Chinese Literature Week in Oslo into easily-digestible bullet points. No actual logical structure or cohesion is implied!
Turnout was amazing—around 4,000 attendees at 30-some events. Not bad for a group of writers few of whom are translated into Norwegian.
A total of seven Chinese authors are available in Norwegian translation, two of whom write in English (Li Yiyun and Guo Xiaolu) and three of whom live outside China (add Ma Jian to the above). The Norwegian publishers I met, to their credit, seem fairly intent on changing this situation. Yu Hua's Brothers is in the works, as is Ai Mi's Under the Hawthorn Tree. Xu Zechen was eyed appraisingly.
The Norwegians are quite generous. Never have I purchased meals with a square of plastic that didn't have to be run through a machine: you gestured with it at the waiters, and they smiled and brought you free food.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 20, 2:54a.m.
I'm in Norway for the House of Literature's Chinese Literature Week (see the link for full schedule). Participants include Xi Chuan 西川, Wang Hui 汪晖, Murong Xuecun 慕容雪村, Ma Jian 马建, Leslie T. Chang, Rebecca Karl, Michael Dutton, Li Yiyun 李翊雲, Hong Ying 虹影, Mian Mian 棉棉, Xu Zechen 徐则臣, Han Song 韩松, Lan Lan 蓝蓝, Cheng Yong Xin 程永新, Zou Zou 走走 and me (thank you Lucas for typing all that up). Annie Baby was supposed to come, but she recently received word that her magazine, Open, was going to be shut, and stayed home instead. The spirit hovering over all this is Halvor Elfring who, besides having a pretty decent name, is Norway's principle sinologist and gracious dinner host of sundry China-related vagabonds [edit: I got Halvor Elfring confused with Harald Bøckman, who has a less exciting name but makes up for it with a great beard].
I'm pleased to be here: we put a fair amount of work into the planning stage of this event ("we" here means Canaan), and it's nice that we can also be present for its execution ("we" here means me). Houses of Literature around the globe, take note!
This is day three of events, but I only arrived last night, so more reports to follow. So far, the House of Literature seems lovely: a large, well-run place offering regular readings and author talks, with a writing center, writer-in-residence quarters, children's literature center, and bookshop. The bookshop had a nice selection of Chinese literature in English and Norwegian translation: Lenin's Kyss by Yan Lianke can only be 受活 (Shouhuo), currently being translated into English by Carlos Rojas. I was also foolishly amused to read of Mo Yan's association with the "Lu Xun-prisen" and the "Mao Dun-prisen". I guess a translator shouldn't laugh at these false cognates—the problem is in your head, after all, not the language—but one permits oneself a little snarkle.
Events have so far been packed: 500+ for writers with no Norwegian translations.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 16, 3:18a.m.
3:00 p.m. @ City University
Panel: Writing Across Languages
Moderator Lucas Klein
Panelists Bejan Matur (Turkey), Tian Yuan (China/Japan), Yao Feng (China), Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia)
This turned out to be an interesting event, though not quite for the reasons I imagined; though I hoped at first to hear a lot of good debate, I see now my notes all dwell on the statements given by each poet at the panel’s beginning. The poets were very well selected, as each one moving away from his or her native language into another, later having to negotiate the distance between the two (or three). Bejan went from Kurdish to Turkish (get to her in a sec), Tomaž has written in Slovenian, French and English, Yao Feng has tried Portuguese and Tian Yuan, who lives in Japan, writes often in Japanese. Discussion shifted midway through the panel from the limits of certain languages to the translatability of poetry, where both Ezra Pound and Robert Frost raised their fearsome heads.
By Canaan Morse, November 14, 7:39p.m.
Sacrifice everything to express our loyalty to Mao Zedong thought! The Proletarian just spent three days in Hong Kong, that lair of capitalist excess, attending a poetry festival organized by Bei Dao through the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Starting last Thursday (11/10) and only finishing Sunday afternoon (11/13), "International Poetry Nights Hong Kong" featured nightly readings by guest poets from around the world and moderated panels during the day. Something like twenty poets were invited, while a number of writers and translators came out of their own interest. Unfortunately, the various events were held separately in four different university venues around Kowloon, so not even this determined student could make it to all of them. Bad notes and not enough coffee make holes in my record inevitable, but if we’re lucky, IPNHK board member and PR contributor Lucas Klein will appear in time and italics to correct me. If you would like to read his perspective on the events in another format, visit his blog, Notes on the Mosquito.
By Canaan Morse, November 13, 10:24a.m.
New York Times on Murong Xuecun
Murong Xuecun (moo-rong shweh-tswen) is the pen name of Hao Qun. At 37, he is among the most famous of a wave of Chinese writers who have become publishing sensations in the past decade because of their canny use of the Internet.
Mr. Murong’s books are racy and violent and nihilistic, with tales of businessmen and officials engaging in bribe-taking, brawling, drinking, gambling and cavorting with prostitutes in China’s booming cities. He is a laureate of corruption, and his friends have introduced him at dinner parties as a writer of pornography.
Words and the World International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong Publication
Words & The World, the twenty-volume box set of multilingual pocket-sized poetry books for this year’s International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong (which will take place from the 10th to 13th this month) has been published, and will be in select Hong Kong bookstores soon.
The books, featuring the twenty participants of the International Poetry Nights, are by María Baranda (Mexico), Régis Bonvicino (Brazil), Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (Russia), Bejan Matur (Turkey), Paul Muldoon (Ireland), Vivek Narayanan (India), Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia), Silke Scheuermann (Germany), Tanikawa Shuntarō (Japan), C. D. Wright (USA), Chen Ko-hua 陳克華 (Taiwan), Ling Yu 零雨 (Taiwan), Luo Chih Cheng 羅智成 (Taiwan), Tian Yuan 田原 (PRC / Japan), Wong Leung Wo 王良和 (Hongkong), Xi Chuan 西川 (PRC), Yao Feng 姚風 (PRC / Macau), Yip Fai 葉煇 (Hongkong), Yu Jian 于堅 (PRC), and Yu Xiang 宇向 (PRC). All books include the original language of composition, plus English and / or Chinese translations, and sell for HK$25 each, or HK$450 for the entire set.
"Dream of Ding Village" by China's Yan Lianke Longlisted for 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize
Dream of Ding Village (丁庄梦) by Yan Lianke has been long-listed for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize. Based on the AIDS epidemic in Henan, China, this Chinese novel was translated into English by the frequent Paper Republic contributor, Cindy Carter.
From Chad Post and the Three Percent crew comes this $2.99 downloadable version of The Three Percent Problem: Rants and Responses on Publishing, Translation, and the Future of Reading [Kindle Edition].
This little book should be required reading for everyone who cares about books, in an age when translation matters more than ever (but has become an increasingly marginalized sub-specialty), in an era in which it's all too easy to forget that the books we've loved the most (Dostoevsky, Proust, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Confucius, the I Ching, the Torah, the Koran, the Old & New Testaments, pretty much every religious tract or towering work of poetry or fiction within that last 2 milennia, for fuck's sake...) have been made available to most of the world's population through translation.
By Cindy M. Carter, October 31, 10:26a.m.
New Comments
on Freedom, with bits missing
There's poetry in that...
目田。
Just freedom,
with bits missing.
posted by Cindy Carter
I guess freedom's not just another word for nothing left to lose.
Lucas
posted by Lucas Klein
on Berlin Fang: Translator's Block
Good comments on the case of Zhang Shaogang Vs. Liu Lili
posted by Sun Huijun
on Here’s a novel way to get your favourite translated short story out there – podcasts
Hi Nicky Beautiful story and reading alive of such quality creates quite an atmosphere. Great idea. Bertrand
posted by bertrand mialaret
on Yan Lianke/Cindy Carter make the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist
Congratulations Cindy!
posted by Bruce Humes
Thanks, Bruce! Hopefully this will help Dream of Ding Village find an even wider readership. And what amazing literary company to be in...I just got my first Kindle and can't wait to read the whole Man Asian list ...
posted by Cindy Carter