The International Poetry Nights in Hong Kong, organized by Bei Dao 北島, will take place from the 10th to 13th of November. Ten Chinese-language poets and ten international poets will give readings and participate in roundtable discussions at various locations around Hongkong. The Chinese-language poets are:
Chen Ko-hua 陳克華 (Taiwan), Ling Yu 零雨 (Taiwan), Luo Chih Cheng 羅智成 (Taiwan), Tian Yuan 田原 (PRC, resides in Japan), Wong Leung Wo 王良和 (Hongkong), Xi Chuan 西川 (PRC), Yao Feng 姚風 (PRC, resides in Macau), Yip Fai 葉煇 (Hongkong), Yu Jian 于堅 (PRC), and Yu Xiang 宇向 (PRC). For more information see the Notes on the Mosquito blog and the Poetry Nights' website for full details and to register.
By Lucas Klein, October 21, 4:45a.m.
To promote my forthcoming translations of the poetry of Xi Chuan 西川, Notes on the Mosquito (New Directions, 2012), I have set up the following blog: xichuanpoetry.com.
The newest news is that,
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By Lucas Klein, October 3, 9:33p.m.
Xi Chuan 西川 and Zhou Zan 周瓒 will be on a US reading tour from Sept. 29 to Oct. 12 to promote the publication of the NEA Anthology Push Open the Window: Contemporary Poetry from China.
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By Lucas Klein, September 27, 12:40a.m.
My co-translation with Clayton Eshleman of Endure: Poems by Bei Dao is now out by Black Widow Press in a special edition by arrangement with New Directions, limited to 1200 copies (so hurry before they're gone!)--contact Black Widow for yours!
Of particular interest to readers of Paper Republic may be the appendix,
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By Lucas Klein, June 5, 3:09a.m.
Here is one of my least favorite poems in the standard anthology, The Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty 唐詩三百首, by Meng Haoran 孟浩然 (c. 689 – 740):
春曉
春眠不覺曉
處處聞啼鳥
夜來風雨聲
花落知多少
It’s one of my least favorite poems* for a number of reasons:
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By Lucas Klein, May 11, 11:35a.m.
Granted, this post has little to do with China aside from the tangential fact that it involves a question whose stated purpose was for views on Chinese contracts in the Congo.
By now we have all heard of, if not seen clips of, Hillary Clinton's sharp retort to the question, "What does Mr. Clinton think, through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton?” Think what you may of the Secretary of State's reaction, I think we should also pay some attention to the fact that, in the words of the New York Times blog, the video came "packaged in reports, like one from Kirit Radia of ABC News, stating that 'apparently the translator made a mistake.'"
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By Lucas Klein, August 13, 12:42p.m.
I've been a casual follower of Chinese - English and English - Chinese translation issues involving The Onion (America's Finest News Source) ever since a 2002 article about American Congresspeople wanting to move from the Capitol building was re-printed in the Beijing Evening News 北京晚报.
Then there was the report from the Onion News Network about China becoming "the world's number one producer of air pollution": "It is a very proud day for my country," says the ambassador from China.
And now The Onion reports that it has been sold "To The Chinese."
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By Lucas Klein, July 20, 1:38p.m.
My review of Eileen Chow & Carlos Rojas's translation of Brothers 兄弟 by Yú Huá 余華 is out, printed in this summer's edition of Rain Taxi.
Since it's only available in print, you'll have to order a copy from the website or else pick up an issue--for free--where available. They're often on offer at independent bookstores in North America.
By Lucas Klein, June 18, 10:42p.m.
In a comment to my post on May 4th & Chinese Literature in Translation, talking about disparities in how different genres of Chinese literature are represented in English, I wrote:
find me one English translation of a single-author collection of poems by a poet living in China.
I was thinking that someone might mention books by Taiwanese poets Shang Qin 商禽 or Hsia Yu 夏宇, both translated by Steven Bradbury (and published by Zephyr Press, a great small press with a large repertoire of translations from the Chinese). And I knew of other works in progress of mainland authors, still awaiting publication.
But I didn't expect that another answer would come from Tibet. This morning I opened my mailbox and found a package sent by A. E. Clark, with a book of his translations of Tibetan-Chinese poet Woeser, Tibet's True Heart, published by Ragged Banner Press.
Woeser writes in Chinese and now lives in Beijing, but her writing is infused with the complexities of her Tibetan cultural background. I haven't yet read Tibet's True Heart, but I look forward to reading Andrew Clark's English versions of her poems.
Sample poems and more recent writing of Woeser can be found on the Ragged Banner website.
By Lucas Klein, May 18, 10:33p.m.
To commemorate the 90th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, the South China Morning Post runs an article investigating
Left on the Shelf: Ninety years after the May 4 movement spawned a host of Chinese literary giants, Ben Blanchard examines why mainland writers remain largely unread internationally
As a tribute to the May Fourth Movement goes, it's no last-year's Sunday New York Times Book Review, featuring four new translations of Chinese literature, but then again, May Fourth doesn't fall on a Sunday this year.
What the South China Morning Post article does raise, implicitly at least, is the question of World Literature and its relationship to Chinese literature.
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By Lucas Klein, May 4, 5:04p.m.
The discussion following my post on footnotes descended, as discussions involving translations often do, into guesses at the world of publishing, and why English-language publishing might be so averse to translations. I called them cowardly (though I can think, especially in the smaller presses, of many brave exceptions); a commentator said they were overworked.
Whatever the reason translations are kept out of the American book market, I was impressed by how translations are marketed in other countries. A novel written by a college friend of mine, Red Weather, recently came out in German, and the publishers have produced a trailer for its release.
I don't understand German, but the trailer is pretty easy to follow.
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By Lucas Klein, March 20, 1:12p.m.
In the comments following the recent and ongoing discussion on book reviewing, Paper-Republic contributors have raised the issue of footnotes. Cindy Carter first wrote,
I've often wondered if it might not be a good idea to return to endnotes in fiction translation. Readers who want to crack right through can do so and not get hung up on the fine print at the bottom of the page, but those who crave more cultural or historical background can flip to the back and read what could well be some fascinating tidbits.
Bruce Humes responded in the affirmative, but also asked,
But how are the footnotes presented? Where they are placed -- on the page itself, at the end of a chapter, or at the back of the book -- what sort of information do they contain, and how they are written are all very important.
Bruce's questions are certainly essential to deciding whether we want to allow footnotes into our translations. Likewise is his admonition against those who would "argue that it is the translator's job to remain 'invisible.'"
The issue seems to be centered around "academic" versus "popular" translations, or publications of translations, and how footnotes have been conceived as a hallmark of academic writing. But while that's certainly true, I wonder if a look at publishing history in Chinese can't help us figure something out about how to use the footnote when we translate.
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By Lucas Klein, March 16, 7:19p.m.
An article from The Economist titled “The Little Red Bookshop” was recently emailed to subscribers of the MCLC List (the email listserv of the Modern Chinese Literature & Culture resource center, and the source of a good deal of the announcements we make on Pap-Rep). The article notices a possible resurgence of leftist thought in China, centered around a bookstore called Utopia, “the term used to describe those nostalgic for Mao Zedong’s rule and worried that the country is abandoning its communist principles.” For anyone familiar with Marxist ideology, though, “Utopia” is a strange name: wouldn’t those really nostalgic for the pre-Reform & Opening-up era believe that Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong Thought was the only outcome of the capitalist class struggle, and therefore an embodiment of Scientific, not utopian, Socialism?
But “Utopia” attracts attention not only because of its false poli-sci consciousness. Following the posting of the original Economist article, somebody sent in a reply about the translation:
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By Lucas Klein, February 13, 6:15a.m.
