Chinese Literature in Translation
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The third annual Beijing International Literary Festival ended about ten days ago; among a pretty outstanding roster of international authors were eight Chinese writers, photographs of whose events the Beijing Bookworm has kindly provided. Podcasts were made from some of the events as well, we've linked where appropriate.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 29, 10:23a.m.
That's the question in a piece by Wang Yan, for the Liaoning Daily. The article is from a seven part series called, "Re-evaluating Chinese literature."
It features the thoughts of a gang of Chinese scholars, whose opinions range from reasonable to... let's say, unreasonable:
In this installment, "re-evaluating" will take on a slightly different meaning, as we evaluate the position of Chinese literature in a more global sense. We will re-evaluate the status of Chinese literature, from the point of view of cultural exchange and translation of Chinese books. No matter what is achieved in our contemporary literature, the question remains of its standing on the world stage.
Translating books and promoting them overseas is our literary bridge to the West. Currently, that bridge might be said to resemble a plank of wood spanning a wide river. This single narrow and flimsy link to the West is no longer sufficient.
Western translators and scholars of Chinese culture are known as Sinologists. They have been studying China for centuries, but there are very few scholars focusing on contemporary literature. Chinese scholarship on Western literature has a history of at least a hundred years, but Western scholarship on Chinese literature is a field with history of only two or three decades. The West and China do not have an equal understanding of each other. Many Chinese authors are simply ignored by Western scholars. There is a general ignorance of Chinese literature in the West, yet Chinese writers still take to heart everytime China is overlooked for the Nobel Prize for Literature. The West ignores Chinese literature but we still hang on every word that Wolfgang Kubin says. Every Chinese writer still wants to become an international writer. Taking all of that into account, let's rethink our answer to the question of how far Chinese literature has progressed down the road to global acceptance.
By Dylan Levi King, March 27, 8:09a.m.
This best-selling Chinese novel (额尔古纳河右岸) has now found buyers in the Netherlands and Italy. Visit here for the details.
By Bruce Humes, March 26, 8:14p.m.
The British Centre for Literary Translation is holding its Summer School 18-24 July 2010 and registration is now open. Bursaries are available for students translating from Chinese to English. Our resident author this year is Yan Geling, and I'll be leading the group. Here's the link: BCLT
By Nicky Harman, March 12, 5:04a.m.
Machine translation has been in the news lately, so I thought it might be interesting to conduct an experiment. I've chosen four different Chinese texts (excerpts from a novel, a film and two newspaper interviews), translated them into English with Google Translate, and added my English translations (three of which have appeared on Paper Republic in the past year). I'm sure most of the translators in our forum have their own machine-translation stories...hope you'll share. That's not to say that machine translation is pointless: ten years from now, we will be taking this a lot more seriously. But in the meantime, we might as well have our bit of fun.
By Cindy M. Carter, March 11, 9:50a.m.
From a report on tainted peas in China published by the New York Times (March 2):
"The outrage over the Hainan cowpeas, the latest in a series of Chinese food safety scandals in recent years, erupted on Feb. 21, when the agriculture bureau of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, announced that it had destroyed 3.5 tons of toxic cowpeas from Hainan. An urgent nationwide warning was issued by the central government’s Ministry of Agriculture, and within days, cowpeas tainted with the banned pesticide were discovered in the three other provinces.
Officials here in Sanya have criticized the Wuhan officials for breaking an “unspoken rule” that officials in different cities and provinces report problems to each other rather than telling the public, China Daily reported.
The release of the information by Wuhan officials “did not save face for Sanya, nor did it save face for the Ministry of Agriculture,” Zhou Qingchong, an official in the Sanya agriculture bureau, told China National Radio, an official news organization, according to the China Daily report.
Mr. Zhou said Wuhan officials could have told Sanya officials about the cowpeas privately, and Sanya would have sent out investigators.
'Wuhan is really not enough of a friend,' he said."
Chinese speakers will recognize this last sentence as a translation of a popular phrase (tho' not always about Wuhan): 武汉真是不够朋友!
Assuming I am right about the original Chinese, two questions: Does this quote read like "normal" English to you? How would you translate it?
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, March 2, 6:42p.m.
New Comments
on Eric Abrahamsen to translate Gongwuyuan Biji/Notes of a civil servant
Cannot wait, please keep us posted on the pub date here in the States!
Thanks , Kelly Wallace
posted by KELLY WALLACE
on Sign up for Pathlight notifications
Can't wait, thanks.
posted by Thomas Gronz
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