Murakami's 1Q84: US$1m for Rights to Chinese Version?
By Bruce Humes, published May 13, 2010, 9:11p.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
Comments
Re: the amount paid, one well-informed publishing professional has just told me that a bid of US$1m was indeed made, but the winning bid was more likely in the neighborhood of US$500,000-600,000.
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
The Taiwan edition translated by Lai Ming-zhu has been available since last November. There are (or were) online serializations, but there is nowhere near the same sort of attention that English-language publishing phenomena like Dan Brown or Harry Potter receive.
Everyone has a different opinion of Lin Shaohua, I suppose -- I didn't really notice the translation when I read Dance, Dance, Dance, but when I was reading his version of Hardboiled Wonderland, I could practically hear it being narrated by the voice-over artists who dub foreign language films for CCTV.
"Everyone has a different opinion of Lin Shaohua"
Indeed, Joel, as one might expect.
But it's important to note that for millions of Chinese readers -- tens of millions, even -- translator Lin Shaohua IS writer Murakami Haruki, because the former had a virtual monopoly on the latter, having translated an amazing 33 of Murakami's novels into Chinese!
By way of comparison, I note that the translation work for the incredibly popular vampire romance novels by Stephanie Meyer has been given to at least two, if not more, translators. At one point, all four of her Twilight volumes ranked among China's Top Ten Best Sellers.
So it would be interesting to know: How did Lin Shaohua get such a stranglehold on Murakami's work? And how did he lose it?
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews
"Lin Shaohua IS writer Murakami Haruki" -- some reader reactions.
I find the use of "monopoly" and "stranglehold" a little odd when applied to translation. A relationship between an author, publisher, and translator, so long as it is successful (critically or commercially) and does not overwork the translator can be maintained indefinitely. The Twilight series of novels was a collaborative translation, probably due to a demanding publication schedule -- the first three were issued in July (three translators), September (three other translators), and December (one translator of #2). Volume 4, which came out the following May, was done by two of the translators of #2. Murakami wasn't so screamingly popular that the publisher would have wanted to saturate the market immediately.
When Shi took over from Lin, it was (a) with a different publisher, and (b) for a memoir, as opposed to a novel, so that may have been a factor in the negotiations. Lin has also come under fire in the past four or five years for the quality of his translations (as you note in your earlier post on Shi's first book). And tastes change, even with the best translations
Also, it seems to me that numbering Lin's translations at "33" books seems a little inflated, compared to a catalog of the author's works in Japanese. Maybe it represents re-issues and alternate collections?
Thanks for the insight, Joel.
The seemingly inflated figure of 33 comes from the piece at Global Times, and no doubt you are right that it includes all sorts of writing, new editions, etc.
Wish I could read the reader reaction you've linked, but my browser gets an error message.
Anyway, long live variety! A new translator will give readers the chance to encounter a new Marukami. We'll have to wait and see how Shi Xiaowei fares.
Bruce Humes
Chinese Books, English Reviews