translator, interpreter
Haidian District, Beijing, China
Canaan Morse began translating literature in the fall of 2006, when he translated and prefaced Wang Shuo's novella The Stewardess for his senior thesis at Colby College in Maine. Immediately after graduation, he returned to Beijing to spend another year in school-two semesters of intensive Chinese at the Inter-University Program for Chinese Studies at Tsinghua, where he first seriously took up Classical Chinese and May Fourth literature as subjects for appreciation, study and translation. He currently resides in Beijing, China.
Translations:
Wang Shuo, The Stewardess (unpublished)
The Tale of Lady Ren 任氏传
He Qifang, Painting Dreams
Publications:
He Qifang, Elegy, published in The Kenyon Review, Summer 2010
He Qifang, Streets, The Weeping Yangtze , in Chinese Literature Today (inaugural issue), July 2010
Lucas Klein will be reading selections from Notes on the Mosquito, a collection of the poetry of Xi Chuan in Lucas's English translation, recently published by the tweedy untouchables at New Directions. Xi Chuan will be there, too. In case "time" and "place" are concepts that matter to you, the schedule says May 10th, 7:30 at the Beijing Bookworm.
By Canaan Morse, May 3, 9:19p.m.
An informal article by Canaan Morse on the poetry blog Metre Maids. Don't know why the site wouldn't let me newslink it.
By Canaan Morse, April 19, 10:04p.m.
Had anyone doubted whether or not China would actually come to the Fair, he may rest assured. The Chinese delegation hosted a Market Focus Reception at the Mandarin Oriental last night, branded with their hallmark of unbelievable expenditure, and the British came along for the ride. Polituburo Standing Committee member Li Changchun gave the opening speech and Prince Andrew followed right after him. Substantial speeches by Mr. Wu something-or-other, the chief of GAPP, and Tie Ning, Party Secretary for the China Writers Association.
Chandelier light glossed the black silk shoulders of the security personnel in a ballroom crowded like a Beijing train platform. Amid the heavy odor of warm Chanel, the China Market Focus at the London Book Fair was rung in with forty minutes of rhetoric about the earth-shattering importance of literature by people who have never written a poem in their lives. (the exception being Tie Ning, for whom the transformation is even more remarkable.) Inspiring, truly. Meanwhile, the reading of excerpts from work by three of the Chinese authors, scheduled for the second half of the ceremony, was canceled due to time concerns.
By Canaan Morse, April 16, 12:53p.m.
Never forget class struggle! The Proletarian just came back from two events at the Bookworm: a conversation with crime novelist Mai Jia (yours truly translating) and Yu Hua's second introduction of his most recent book, China in Ten Words (十个词汇里的中国, supposedly masterfully translated by Alan Barr), featuring Eric as interpreter. The Mai Jia event was passably interesting, but Yu Hua damn near brought the political house down, and so while it may contain elements of mainstream sensationalism, we're going to talk about him.
By Canaan Morse, March 14, 11:10a.m.
The latest edition of Paper Republic's industry newsletter is done and making its way into subscribers' inboxes right now. Included in this edition are notes on the Cambridge China library, an update on the Writer's Alliance lawsuit, a toothy scad of new book descriptions and a very comprehensive overview of the state of online literature in the Pee Are See.
If you sign up in the next few hours here, you can still get in on the action.
By Canaan Morse, March 5, 6:30a.m.
3:00 p.m. @ City University
Panel: Writing Across Languages
Moderator Lucas Klein
Panelists Bejan Matur (Turkey), Tian Yuan (China/Japan), Yao Feng (China), Tomaž Šalamun (Slovenia)
This turned out to be an interesting event, though not quite for the reasons I imagined; though I hoped at first to hear a lot of good debate, I see now my notes all dwell on the statements given by each poet at the panel’s beginning. The poets were very well selected, as each one moving away from his or her native language into another, later having to negotiate the distance between the two (or three). Bejan went from Kurdish to Turkish (get to her in a sec), Tomaž has written in Slovenian, French and English, Yao Feng has tried Portuguese and Tian Yuan, who lives in Japan, writes often in Japanese. Discussion shifted midway through the panel from the limits of certain languages to the translatability of poetry, where both Ezra Pound and Robert Frost raised their fearsome heads.
By Canaan Morse, November 14, 7:39p.m.
Sacrifice everything to express our loyalty to Mao Zedong thought! The Proletarian just spent three days in Hong Kong, that lair of capitalist excess, attending a poetry festival organized by Bei Dao through the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Starting last Thursday (11/10) and only finishing Sunday afternoon (11/13), "International Poetry Nights Hong Kong" featured nightly readings by guest poets from around the world and moderated panels during the day. Something like twenty poets were invited, while a number of writers and translators came out of their own interest. Unfortunately, the various events were held separately in four different university venues around Kowloon, so not even this determined student could make it to all of them. Bad notes and not enough coffee make holes in my record inevitable, but if we’re lucky, IPNHK board member and PR contributor Lucas Klein will appear in time and italics to correct me. If you would like to read his perspective on the events in another format, visit his blog, Notes on the Mosquito.
By Canaan Morse, November 13, 10:24a.m.
I would say, Watch out, Eric's been putting his name on legally binding documents, but it's good news! Last week, PR signed a pair of contracts with People's Literature Publishing House (人民文学出版社) in which we agreed to provide translation, marketing and representation services for the People's Literature booklist. We'll be reviewing both their new and old titles, creating English introductions and samples and selling the really good ones. We've actually been doing this with them for a few months now already, this just makes it official!
For translators, this means we are going to have an abundance of high-quality work to do in just the next couple of months. While most pieces will be fairly short (5,000 words or so), we do have one large-scale translation in the pipeline that will require samples for their review. All payment will be done by us, which means the money will be GOOD. We promise. That's why we're in this business. So send an email either to me (Canaan) or Eric at (our first name@paper-republic.org), preferably with a resume, and let us know you're interested!
By Canaan Morse, September 23, 10:40p.m.
Endure: Poems by Bei Dao. Trans. Clayton Eshleman and Lucas Klein. Boston: Black Widow Press. 2011. 131 pages, CN/EN duotext. ISBN: 978-0-9842640-8-7
When reading a well-known poet for the first time, it’s natural to distrust one’s ear—to hold the poet’s reputation in the periphery of one’s mental sight and weigh one’s own judgments against it. This even more so for poetry in translation, as one assumes a great distance between the accessible translation and (often) inaccessible original, which converses with such a different audience. Such considerations make it easy to play down genuine impressions of the text and be timid where one should be bold.
By Canaan Morse, September 15, 10:11p.m.
Yesterday was the first day of Beijing’s 18th annual International Book Fair, now in a new venue, the New China International Exhibition Center (新国展), which is right next to the airport in Shunyi. The location is huge: the fair is only using four of eight total exhibition rooms in one of the three main buildings, and even then the space feels pretty empty. This year’s Guest of Honor is The Netherlands, who have set up a white-and-pale blue pavilion reminiscent of the Shanghai Expo last year, and they are joined in their hall by representatives from all the major European and Asian countries. That same space houses all the major foreign publishing enterprises who came to the fair, and it is one clear center of activity. Penguin has a huge booth; W.W. Norton, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, MacMillan, McGraw-Hill, Harper’s and Hachette are all here, as well as the major university presses from England and America.
By Canaan Morse, August 31, 10:33p.m.
We admit to being despicably late with this, and hope that Kadi defer from poisoning our coffee.
The Bookworm and English Trackers are hosting another Translation Slam and looking for two Chinese to English translators. How it works: translators tackle a Chinese text, and then present their versions on stage, fielding questions from the audience. This month, we will be translating an excerpt from the script (600 characters) of the play The Great Bruce Lee Romance: a Beijing Love Story. Full of love, angst and Beijing hua this original piece is sure to strike a chord with Beijingren of all nationalities. You will be given the excerpt as well as a synopsis in English for additional background information. If you are interested, please contact Kadi (kadi@chinabookworm) for more information about the event and payment. The event will be held Wednesday, August 17 at 7:30pm at The Bookworm.
By Canaan Morse, August 5, 4:58p.m.
For us at PR not to give a nod to today would be negligence.
Reports have been that the CCP has gone to lengths this year to keep people from publicly commemorating this day through discussion or presentation. At first thought, it seems unsurprising, but there is something special about the sensitivity of May 4th. It represents a movement the government would like either to appropriate or ignore, because it cannot afford to forget it.
By Canaan Morse, May 3, 11:31p.m.
We are, at long last, updating the database. No, stop sniggering, I'm being serious. We've got new bio information for a number of writers, new books up and a seriously broader range of samples.
By Canaan Morse, April 18, 2:18a.m.
The official announcement of Asymptote's first issue:
The inaugural issue of ASYMPTOTE is now out and features original essays by Mary Gaitskill and Alain de Botton, fiction by Thomas Bernhard and Yoram Kaniuk, poems by Aimé Césaire, Ko Un, Gleb Shulpyakov, Pura López-Colomé and Habib Tengour; drama by Toshiki Okada; visual poetry from Iceland (on video) and Japan; a Swedish Poetry Special Feature, a recreation of one day in the life of Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, an interview with Francis Li Zhuoxiong(2010 World Cup songwriter) and more.
By Canaan Morse, February 15, 12:23a.m.
Paper Republic Associate Wang Danhua's write-up of Dangdai magazine's Best Novels of 2010 Award election ceremony, translated and with commentary by Canaan Morse. Read on to find out who won!
By Canaan Morse, January 18, 10:19p.m.