From the June 1 New York Times:
BEIJING — A security guard apparently angered by a court-imposed divorce settlement shot and killed three people and wounded three others at a courthouse in Hunan Province before turning the weapon on himself, the state media reported.
...the assailant, Zhu Jun, 46, was the head of security at a local Postal Savings Bank branch and had access to a small arsenal.
Thus my question: How does one say, "He went postal" in Chinese?
By Bruce Humes, June 1, 8:17p.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.
Date: 19 Apr 2010
Time: 11:30-12:30
Location: Marlborough Room, Earls Court 1
Topic: From bestselling author to renowned publisher: The superstar of China’s ever-evolving publishing scene.
Speakers: Guo Jingming (郭敬明), author and publisher. And authors: Ye Chan, Xiao Kaiyin, Lu Lili, Chen Long.
If you go, please let us know how the session went.
By Bruce Humes, April 18, 9:40p.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.
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.
A gutsy young Hui from Xinjiang has reportedly just arrived in Oslo to take part in the Worldwide Mr. Gay. One can only surmise that, as much of a hassle as he may have been given, he couldn't have left China with a valid passport unless somebody upstairs gave the nod. Read the details here.
And so, my questions: What is the current status of gay and lesbian writing in China today, both by homosexual authors, and by others writing about the topic? Translation-wise, which works have been translated into or from Chinese? What kind of censorship do such works face?
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, February 12, 6:54p.m.
The latest entry in Canongate’s Myth Series, King Gesar, has been launched in China, and the firm has confirmed to me that it hopes to publish it in English within 2011. When it makes its appearance, it will join other creatively re-told tales commissioned by the UK publisher, including The Penelopiad (Margaret Atwood’s take on Penelope of The Odyssey), Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Baba Yaga as per Dubravka Ugresic), and Binu and the Great Wall (by China’s Su Tong).
I recently began reading King Gesar in Chinese (格萨尔王), and I wonder: Who is the author, Alai (阿来), and why was he commissioned to write the novel? Having grown up in Tibet under Chinese rule, has he had access to traditional Tibetan literature and the minstrels who transmitted the epic ballad down through the ages? How well does the book capture the spirit of this epic that is still deeply revered among Tibetans, Mongolians and various peoples of Central Asia?
More…
By Bruce Humes, January 22, 8:42p.m.
Alerted by the Literary Saloon that "Asia's leading literary festival" is on in Jaipur Jan 21-25, I checked out the list of speakers.
Wow! Around 175 speakers, including many authors and some journalists, academics and even translators. Granted, the overwhelming majority are Indian or live there, but even so, their countries of origin make an interesting read: Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Burma, as one might expect, and the US and the UK are well represented too; but also France, Spain, Italy, Antigua, Congo, Nigeria and South Africa.
And---unless I missed it---not one speaker from anywhere in China.
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, January 20, 5:26a.m.
"Living a decent life, just by translating literary works? I think it's impossible!" said [China-based] Yang Ziwu, the acclaimed translator who has recently published his revised edition of the eight-volume A History of Modern Criticism [by Rene Wellek].
Check out the full interview in English at the Global Times: http://life.globaltimes.cn/life/2009-12/494615.html
English-to-Chinese literary translation factoids that emerge during the interview:
"According to a regulation by the National Copyright Administration, the standard payment for translating English literary works [into Chinese] is 20 to 80 yuan [US$2.90-11.70] per thousand Chinese characters."
"Generally speaking, even the most sophisticated and renowned translators earn less than 70 yuan [US$10.25] per thousand characters, according to Zhang Jianping, director of the literary department at Shanghai Translation Publishing House."
"The average payment for translating business texts often ranges from 200 to 300 yuan (US$30-44) or higher per one thousand Chinese characters, according to Wang Jin, a greenhand who majored in English and American Literature, then rushed into the field after graduation last year."
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, December 28, 12:52a.m.
A recent article in the The People's Daily (overseas edition) poses the question: Now that most older masters of Chinese-to-English literary translation such as Yang Xianyi have gone to heaven, who shall carry the baton forward?
More…
By Bruce Humes, December 17, 11:41p.m.
Now that China's Coming-Out-Party in Frankfurt is over, Wolfgang Kubin, Bonn University Professor of Chinese Studies--and an outspoken critic of modern Chinese literature--is back with a vengeance. Here are two excerpts (my translation from the French) from the lively and provocative interview online at Books, L'actualité par des livres:
"The [Chinese] novel, [in contrast with Chinese poetry] enjoys a high profile internationally, but is of rather mediocre quality. This opinion is largely shared among my colleagues. But what my Chinese counterparts say—in private—is even more extreme. In most of their eyes, the contemporary version of the [Chinese] novelist is an utter ignoramus: he has no literary culture, no mastery of his language, doesn’t know a word of English, and hasn’t the slightest knowledge of foreign literature. According to them, on the world stage Chinese novelists are tubaozi (土包子), or hillbillys, as one calls migrants in China who have left the countryside for the big cities."
More…
By Bruce Humes, November 7, 6:48a.m.
In his recent book review of the new English translation of "The Tin Drum," Michael Dirda writes:
Grass has grown increasingly involved in the foreign versions of his work, going so far as to organize Übersetzertreffen -- short convocations of his translators -- at which he fields questions about his various books. From his experience of these meetings, Grass persuaded his publishers to commission a new English version of "The Tin Drum" from the distinguished Germanist Breon Mitchell.
It is refreshing to know that there are authors who understand the benefits of actually meeting with their translators.
Three things came to mind as I read this piece:
--- Have there been any such "TranslatorFests" in China to date?
--- I have heard occasionally of programs for literary translators in Europe, which feature an invitation to live for a few months (expenses paid) in the country whose language/culture the translator regularly interprets/translates for others. Do China, Hong Kong or Taiwan have such a program?
--- If you could re-translate any piece of modern Chinese writing, which one, and why?
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, October 23, 10:40p.m.
Ranking 13th on the list of China Best Selling Fiction, Right Bank of the Argun (额尔古纳河右岸) by Chi Zijian (迟子建) is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of an aging Evenki woman in the last years of the 20th century. She chooses to stay behind when her tribe abandons the forested mountains of Northeast China for "civilized" life among town dwellers, where their beloved reindeer will be cooped up like cattle. For details of the real-life relocation, see Reindeer Blog.
Right Bank of the Argun has not been translated into English, despite the fact that it won the prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2008. To introduce this piece of "fictionalized anthropology," I have translated an excerpt from the author's Afterword. Intriguingly, Chi Zijian was inspired to write this novel partly based on events in her youth (she lived near mountains inhabited by the Oroqen, who are closely related to the Evenki), as well as encounters with Australian aborigines and. . .Irish pub-goers.
More…
By Bruce Humes, October 18, 6:54p.m.
Can’t believe that Paper-Republic—based in Beijing!—hasn’t got something a bit more meaty up regarding the “international” book fair on through Sep 7.
You might want to check out the fair’s official English web site, or then again, perhaps not. Here’s what you will not find: A list of exhibitors, international or otherwise; A full list of forum/seminar topics. And so forth. But just in case you are interested, there is a nice news piece on the fair in 2008. For 2009 factoids, please revisit in 2010...
Spain is the Guest of Honor, and there are many forums/seminars on Spanish literature and other topics hosted by the Beijing Cervantes Institute. This list is in English.
A quick look at the long list of forums/seminars described in Chinese (some will no doubt be bilingual) reveals a handful of potentially interesting topics:
Sep 4
10:30-11:30: Book launch: Xinjiang books
Sep 5
13:00-15:00: Spanish-Chinese translation
14:00-15:00: Preparing for Frankfurt Book Fair. How to “go global.”
Sep 6
15:00-16:00: Publishing and Translation Seminar: Image of Chinese literature abroad
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
By Bruce Humes, September 2, 10:27p.m.
An Australian publisher just visited my web site, Chinese Books, English Reviews and very kindly took the time to tell me what s/he is hoping for in a potential China author/book:
1) Quality writing
2) Adds to one's knowledge of contemporary China in an interesting, challenging way
3) Would sell many copies
4) Author could be invited to Australia as a guest at writers' festivals
5) Global English rights available.
By Bruce Humes, June 1, 11:53p.m.
