Critics Diss List of “Most Influential” Translations, Caution Authors to Target Compatriots
http://bruce-humes.com/archives/8718
Not a few commentators hold the opinion that every writer should actually address the readership in his own land that speaks his language, and with whom he shares a common history and destiny. In other words, the fundamental question is: For whom is the work written, who shall be its premier reader? Only when this is the case, then if our writers become aware of the existence of others readers in the world, this will not be a bad thing.
Comments
The Quora Digest asks the question: Are Chinese people xenophobic? Xenophobia is a very complex term that almost always requires context to be meaningful. One reviewer of my novel THE HIDDEN LIFE OF EDDIE KITCHENS wrote that my central character Eddie Kitchens runs into a wall of xenophobia when she goes to China in the 1930s as a war correspondent to cover the Second Sino-Japanese War. What Eddie encounters as a young African American female in China alone is an admixture of things all too complicated to be simply labeled “xenophobia.” For example, when sitting in a park in Tianjin waiting for someone, Eddie attracted some Chinese children who gathered around her, curious about her skin color: Eddie sat for awhile in the little park across from her hotel and watched some children fly their kites. Some of the smaller children gathered around her, fascinated by her Negroid hair and her dark color. One pretty little Chinese girl wanted to touch her black face to see if the color rubbed off. Eddie smiled and picked the little girl up and placed her gently on her lap, and allowed her to touch her face and feel her hair. She knew the child was merely expressing a natural curiosity and meant no harm. Is there color prejudice in China? Of course there is; there is color prejudice everywhere. But the roots and intensity of that prejudice vary from place to place, depending on history and other factors—in other words, the context needed to make the term “xenophobia” meaningful as related to those children. My novel, among other things, deals with China at a time when people all over the world were busy hating or lording over others, particularly the colonial powers that were exploiting China at the time. Speaking of how China suffered under both Japan and western imperial countries, an old China observer says in my novel, “China's like a fat delicious duck that won't stay carved up, and just keeps getting off the serving platter.” History proved him to be right. Now China belongs to only the Chinese.
Will Gibson http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Life-Eddie-Kitchens-ebook/dp/B00BRONP64/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Will Gibson, January 7, 2015, 10:35p.m.