What looks like a great event at the One Way Bookstore this Saturday, 3-5pm. Jiang Yitan discussing his new book Lu Xun's Beard (鲁迅的胡子), in an event themed "Reading Quiet Fiction in an Unquiet Age". Also speaking are Li Er, one of our favorites, Ge Fei, often considered Li Er's mentor, Bei Cun, and Qiu Huadong, a writer of urban fiction to watch.
The One Way Street Bookstore's website appears to be down, here are the details:
Date/Time: June 5 (Saturday), 3-5pm
Address: Beijing, Solana (蓝色港湾), building 11, number 16
Phone: 010-59056973
By Eric Abrahamsen, May 31, 11:49p.m.
For the past couple months I've spent my Thursdays teaching literary translation classes to translation-studies majors at the Beijing Foreign Languages University. When they first came calling about this program, I suspected that it was of a piece with the government's plan to train an army of domestic Chinese-English translators, thereby liberating Chinese literature from the hands of fickle foreign translators with their imperfect comprehension and questionable loyalties (the final step of this plan is to train an even larger army of domestic readers to consume these domestically-produced English translations, whereupon the whole of Chinese culture will fold up and disappear with a "Foop!", leaving a blank space that can be filled with 喜羊羊 re-runs), and I was leery. They assured me that it was simply a cunning plan to use literary translation to improve the students' English, banking on the old chestnut that there is no more careful reader of a text than its translator, and I agreed.
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By Eric Abrahamsen, May 24, 10:25a.m.
The website for Oklahoma University's virgin publication Chinese Literature Today is up here, and it looks like they're working on it daily. It (the website) is appearing two steps ahead of CLT's inaugural issue, due to be published this July.
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By Canaan Morse, May 23, 2:34a.m.
The CEATL (Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires) has recently published a report on literary translators' rates and working conditions. The report can be downloaded from here
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By Nicky Harman, May 18, 11:04a.m.
The Global Times reports that Thinkingdom Media Group has acquired the rights to publish Murakami Haruki's best seller, 1Q84, in simplified Chinese. Release for the first volume is set for end May.
Three very interesting developments in this deal:
---The group reportedly (no source cited) paid US$1m for the rights, which would make it the highest figure ever paid to publish a foreign book in Chinese for distribution in mainland China;
---It will first appear in hardback;
---Lin Shaohua (林少华), the translator of all but one of Murakami's novels, did not get the nod for this one. 1Q84 will be translated by Shi Xiaowei (施小炜), who translated Murakami's most recent work, What I Talk about when I Talk about Running.
Given that the first two volumes are already out in languages such as English, French, Spanish and German, one can't help wondering at the publisher's decision to launch just the first volume now, and to do so in hardback. Surely both volumes are already up in Chinese on-line where they can be accessed and perhaps even downloaded for free?
On a personal note, am pleased to see that the "Lin Shaohua Era" has come to an end. I don't read Japanese well enough to comment on the accuracy of his translations of Murakami. But I have read Lin Shaohua's as well as English and French versions, and his style leaves one feeling as if the books were penned in Chinese by a pretentious Chinese intellectual, and that really turns me off. I just don't believe that Murakami thinks or writes like a Chinese intellectual.
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, May 13, 9:11p.m.
For those of you reading via RSS: we've recently added a new Publishing Industry News section to Paper Republic, providing regular updates on… the publishing industry in China! There's a dedicated RSS feed for the news, and you can also write to us at news@paper-republic.org with any news, queries or requests of your own.
Along with the general tweaking we've also added one central page where you can see all the translation samples available for download on PR — read and enjoy!
By Eric Abrahamsen, May 2, 9:16a.m.
New Comments
on Dunhuang Novel Set in Cultural Revolution Alarms China's Censors
In his foreword, Xiao Mo describes what sort of book he's written:
posted by jdmartinsen
Xiao Mo made a blog post yesterday explaining that his publisher has told him that they have not in fact received any order banning the book. (title is 萧默主动删除“笑谈《一叶一菩提》被禁”》三文的声明 — you’ll have to search for his ...
posted by jdmartinsen
In my opinion, “Banned in China” doesn’t necessarily mean that an official document has been issued by anyone; it means that when one goes to a bookstore in China, the book isn’t there and cannot be ordered. Or ...
posted by Bruce
on Five more days for Man Asian Literary Prize submissions
I want to know who are on the list!
posted by Dongxiao
on Romancing the Office Chair
I vote for "officialdom".
posted by Jonathan
Wow, thanks for all the suggestions!
@Joel: Shangchang is definitely a better example than zhichang, that's really the right feeling.
@Jonathan: "Officialdom" is the term which has become accepted (how did that happen?) as the genre label, but I ...
posted by Eric Abrahamsen