Review of Wang Gang's English, translated by Martin Merz and Jane Weizhen Pan

The significance of the different languages and how they interact in the novel presents particular challenges for the translators, and overall their English—and their English—is as fluid and conversational as Wang Gang’s Chinese. At times, however, more creativity would have sharpened the reading: given the centrality of the dictionary as a plot device, a more imaginative rendering of the phonetic transliteration of “English” in the title—something like “Eng´·lish,” for instance—would have drawn this out. Likewise, the name of the English teacher is a pun that means both “second prize” and “Asian Military,” a common name for Chinese people born soon after the Communist Revolution; some kind of accommodation of the double meaning would no doubt be of interest to readers. A close comparison of the English and the Chinese reveals that many cuts were made for the sake of an Anglophone readership, a common but needless misstep on the part of publishers, who seem to have quite low expectations of American readers.

attached to: English