It wasn’t all work and no play…
Some of us went to a local restaurant.
The local produce was fantastic. Here’s the menu:
Cold Starters 冷菜
Pickled bamboo shoots (bamboo grows everywhere and gets into everything).
Wild ‘herbs’ 野菜 with chopped beancurd (the herbs were about the size and thickness of chives, and had a slightly astringent flavour).
Warm salad of chicken giblets.
Salad of cucumber slices.
Fried dried fish slivers.
Hot dishes
Soup of chicken and terrapin.
Red-cooked wild boar.
Red-cooked wild rabbit with bacon.
Red-cooked game chicken (野鸡 unspecified, maybe partridge).
Scrambled eggs with fungi of some sort.
Deep-fried fishes (about the size of whitebait) mixed with lots of deep-fried bay leaves and chilli peppers.
Stir-fried greens and various other dishes of stir-fried vegetables, more or less 野.
Local beer; local tea; local grain spirit (白酒).
Total cost 100 RMB, which including treating our leader, author and helper.
Wow!
By Nicky Harman, March 28, 2:18p.m.
"PEN believes there are currently 38 writers and journalists imprisoned in China for exercising their right to speak and write freely, as guaranteed under Chinese and international law. We are concerned that, despite official pledges to respect essential rights in this Olympic year, Chinese authorities continue to harass and detain writers in violation of their right to freedom of expression."
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 28, 1:14a.m.
The night of March 23, a Sunday night in the brand-new Grand National Theatre, where the National Centre for the Performing Arts was putting on a version of Puccini's Turandot. Ping, one of the emperor's three ministers, stands forward to lament, "O China, o China, che or sussulti e trasecoli inquieta" ("O China, O China, now always startled and aghast, restless"), and what comes up on the Chinese subtitle screen? "O World, O World, now always startled and aghast…"
Because we've become fragile to the point where words of a fictional character in a Western opera written in 1920s are sufficient to bring us down. Or are our national feelings so easily hurt? Or is it part of the gentle campaign to blur the edges of things, to recast what's seen and heard in a way that leaves a false impression, while stopping short of out-and-out dishonesty?
Funny how these little things can touch off the rancor you've otherwise kept well in check…
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 28, 1:13a.m.
The arena: The second floor of the Baiyun Hotel, an enormous official meeting hall some of us have dubbed the Great Hall of the People, complete with velvet curtains, raised podium, and (apparently) refrigerated wooden chairs.
The contestants: Jiang Rong, author of Wolf Totem, and Howard Goldblatt, translator of that novel into English.
The grudge: Billed as a conversation between translator and translatee, the event was actually a chance for Jiang Rong to air his grievances about Howard Goldblatt’s translation. The two are actually pretty chummy, but neither was averse to a little dustup – Goldblatt started off by essentially leaning back, folding his arms, and saying “do your worst”.
More…
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 28, 12:58a.m.
The awards are out! PEN has announced the recipients of the 2008 awards; China is represented by Andrea Lingenfelter, who won a grant to translate Annie Baby's Padma, "the story of two disaffected city-dwellers who set out on a quest-like trek in a rugged and remote area of Tibet." No publisher has picked this up yet, but word is the award itself has generated a lot of interest. Congrats!
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 20, 11:53a.m.
The first thing you learn from group translation is how vital privacy ordinarily is to this kind of work. Laboring in solitude, in whatever state of disarray or distraction you please, is a luxury – and something of a necessity. As a general rule the first three drafts of anything are execrable, and being able to drown those drafts in the confidence that no one will ever know they existed provides such peace of mind. Silly ideas surface and subside without being much exposed to the light of rational judgment, and the final forms of things are gently extracted from this unarticulated mess.
It’s alarming, to say the least, to be given a chunk of a Chinese novel and asked, “So, how would you translate that first sentence?” while everyone in the room watches you. I think we all started out more or less aghast that we’d be asked to perform, in a sense – if we were comfortable with that we’d have gone into interpretation. But, of course, there are salutory things about this public disrobing – most immediate is the way it zaps your emotional investment in your translation. You stammer out something far, far inferior to what you might have produced had you been sitting alone at your own desk in your boxer shorts, and then everyone in the room tears it apart. Three rounds of that and you no longer regard your words as your own. Which, of course, they weren’t to begin with.
We’re doing about six sentences an hour on Tie Ning’s Dayunü (大浴女), chewing over every article and preposition, dueling for adverbs, and the main lesson so far has been one I’ve learned over and over, and will probably continue to learn until I give up on this altogether: You’ve never thought hard enough about what you’ve written.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 19, 8:40p.m.
Today is day one of the Sino-British Literary Translation course. After a very raucous train ride from Beijing to Shanghai we boarded a four-hour bus to Moganshan (莫干山 – Ever-wet Mountain?) and here we are. It’s been a long day and I’m tired, but the general format of the course is this: there are twenty Chinese to English translators and twenty English to Chinese. Each group is split in half, and assigned to one of two authors: the English-Chinese folks got Hari Kunzru and Bernadine Evaristo, and we of the Chinese-English persuasion got Tie Ning (铁凝) and Li Er (李洱). That’s four groups of ten, each with their author, and also a moderator to keep things in hand. And then… we translate. Together. Line by consensual line. Given the crotchety personalities of the translators I know, it sounds highly dubious, but this is the model they use at the British Center for Literary Translation, and they say it works. At the very least we should get some lively arguments out of it, and there are enough fascinating people around to ensure a worthwhile week.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 17, 8:58p.m.
It seems Jiang Rong, author of Wolf Totem has decided it's time to step out of anonymity and start going by his real name – Lu Jiamin. Apparently, with the release of the book's English version right around the corner and his international reputation rising, he decided now was the time…
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 12, 10:23a.m.
Mo Yan visited the Beijing Number Eleven School on Saturday, and spoke to students on the verge of taking the 高考 (gāokǎo, the test which determines a student’s chances of getting in college). There’s lots of hand-wringing (or at least there should be) about China’s high-school educational system, which steamrollers students into a single mold, and leaves them hardly any time to themselves in which they might repair the damage.
Mo Yan to the rescue. Never mind that the steamroller possesses the momentum of a celestial body; he encouraged students to do a little writing that “you don’t show your teachers” after graduation – keeping a diary or posting online. This sort of private writing would be essential in allowing them to form their own characters. He also said that students should be allowed to read what they pleased, and spoke positively about the ease with which young people could publish and read on the internet.
There’s something a little heartbreaking about Mo Yan speaking to these students, the scions of a nation which has given its people no peace for two generations, on the eve of one of the most grueling mass experiences many of them will ever undergo, and telling them, “try to make a little space for yourselves.” You can practically hear him add, under his breath, “you’re going to need it.”
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 10, 9:04p.m.
I went to attend the press conference for Han Dong’s new book, 小城好汉之英特迈往 (xiǎochénghǎohàn zhī yīngtèmàiwǎng, The Legendary Exploits of a Small Town Bravo) at the Sanlian Bookstore last Saturday. I haven’t been to many book release events outside of China and don’t have much to judge by, but I think the local model is strange – the publisher ropes together big-name writer friends of the author, and gets them to speak in praise of the book in question. It’s neither a plain press release, nor a meaty discussion of the book, and the event is typically precisely as interesting as the personalities of the writers attending. The only thing that kept me awake during the launch of Li Rui’s 人间, for example, was Yan Lianke and his sense of humor.
This event was similar – Han Dong’s posse included Mou Sen (牟森, an avant-garde theater director), Zhu Wen, Yin Lichuan, and Yan Jingming (阎晶明, a literary critic). For all the ambiguity of the event itself, it was an entertaining crowd. First of all, Han Dong was at a total loss as to what to say. The man has been writing poetry and fiction for twenty years, and this was his first public appearance in support of one of his books – that ought to provide some idea of the literary marketplace here. But Zhu Wen was funny, both Mou Sen and Yan Yingming had thoughtful reactions to the book, and if Yin Lichuan had little to say she at least appeared sincere.
More…
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 10, 7:57p.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
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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