Our News, Your News
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 29, '14
That wasn’t so hard after all – the CWA has given us the list of the
25 translation fund recipients for the last round of funding. What we
don’t know are the details of translator/publisher (though in many
cases you can guess), or how much funding will actually be supplied.
But still, it’s an interesting list – see it below, after the jump.
In the meantime, the deadline is nearly up for the next round of
funding for both the general CWA program, and its ethnic-minority
fiction funding program. The ethnic-minority funding applications will
be reviewed next month, and the contemporary fiction applications the
month after, so time is short. If you’ve got all the necessary
materials on hand (and the publishing contract is already signed), you
can first send a digital version of the application to the Writers
Association at dreamworker2013@163.com.
More…
Brief answers -- in Chinese -- to questions by 7 translators working into or out of Chinese, including Chinese-English, Chinese-French, Chinese-Korean, children's literature, etc.
Canaan Morse is a literary translator and editor whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Chinese Literature Today, Words and The World, Pathlight: New Chinese Writing, Chutzpah!, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. A recent graduate of Peking University's Chinese department with an M.A. in Classical Chinese Literature, he lived in Beijing for six years where he co-founded the literary quarterly Pathlight: New Chinese Writing. His translation of Ge Fei's The Invisibility Cloak is due for publication by New York Review of Books in 2015.
The latest in "Dispatches" from Words Without Borders. By Nicky Harman:
You might imagine that I thought long and hard in choosing my best untranslated book, because China has so many writers and so little of their work reaches the West, at least in English. But I plumped without any hesitation for Yan Ge’s The Chilli Bean Paste Clan. (The title in Chinese is 《我们家》Our Family.)
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 25, '14
Towards the end of last year, the China Writers Association announced the inception of two new literary translation funds, one for general fiction, and the other specifically for minority fiction. Many applications were submitted, and then we all commenced to wait. And wait, and…
We started to suspect that the whole thing had foundered on some hidden bureaucratic sandbar, but just recently we heard that the program is, in fact, still under way – not only that, the CWA is actually ready to announce its first round of winners. Not announce, exactly: the winners will be contacted on the down-low. We're trying to convince them that publicizing the full list is in everyone's best interest, but it's not clear if that argument will take.
If you applied for funding, and have been chosen, expect to get that news "soon". The translators among you will know how to translate that "soon" into English. You publishers can probably also figure it out.
If you applied and didn't get it… you may never know! Unless we can talk them into publicizing the list.
By Bruce Humes, August 24, '14
Winners of the "2013 China International Translation Contest," co-hosted by the State Council Information Office, Chinese Writer Association and the China International Publishing Group, have been announced. According to 国际翻译大赛, the organizing committee provided 30 pieces of contemporary Chinese short stories from which to choose, and 1,006 renditions were received from over 30 countries in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.
More…
The seminar, held by the Chinese Writers Association, gathered some 70 Sinologists, academics who specialize in China, from all over the world to "parse Chinese stories" with a dozen Chinese authors, including Mo Yan and Mai Jia. (With a great photo!)
BEIJING, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's prestigious Lu Xun Literature Prize has come under fire after its most recent award winner for poetry was denounced as a "shame on poetry."
Chinese authors Xu Zechen and Wang Gang, Russian poet Maxim Amelia, Chinese and Swedish illustrators, Chinese translator Huang Liaoyu, and more, including venue addresses in Chinese and English . . .
. . . when both translators are highly fluent in the source language, that doesn’t mean that the first draft is necessarily carried out just by the native speaker of the source text.
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 12, '14
The deadline for the CELT translation training course has been extended to August 18 (2014), since (for reasons I personally cannot fathom) the number of applicants to date has amounted to something less than a tidal wave.
I want to emphasize what a worthwhile thing this is: personally, the two courses I attended were not only the most helpful things I've done for my development as a translator, they were also instrumental in the solidification of a society of C-E literary translators, a social circle or support group, a mafia even. And needless to say they were a hell of a lot of fun. So do it, already!
See below, and after the jump, for more details:
The Chinese English Literary Translation course will run from 22nd to 27th September 2014 in the Yellow Mountains. The course will offer a mix of literary translation and creative writing workshops, with guest speakers.
More…
. . . 26 international Sinologists and translators will be taking part from Austria, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and the U.S. They include the (in)famous German Sinologist Wolfgang Kubin, Ezra Vogel (author, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China), Nicoletta Pesaro (Italian translator of Ma Jian and Yu Hua), Turkey’s Giray Fidan (author, Ottoman Firearms and Ottomans in China during the Kanuni Era) . . .
Aug 21: just learned that authors Chi Zijian, Wang Gang, Bi Feiyu and Zhang Wei will also be taking part in several forums, as well as literary agent Toby Eady
[Note: China-based translators and publishing professionals welcome to attend]
During the ceremony announcing the academy’s creation, school officials said one goal was to produce an elite network of overseas graduates who will “understand, appreciate and love Chinese culture” and “correct the expanding misunderstanding of China by the world.”
Foreign publishers, writers and translators to be decorated by GAPP for their contribution . . .
Winners will be handsomely rewarded: 1 grand prize winner, 120,000 yuan (US$19,500); and 30,000 yuan (US$4,875) each for 4 winners in original fiction/poetry, 2 winners in the translation category, and 2 “promising new writers" under 40 . . .
Between World War I and World II, Republican era Shanghai experienced a boom in manhua--Chinese cartoon magazines--that has yet to be matched even today.
Turkey is the “Country of Honor” at the upcoming Beijing Int’l Book Fair (Aug 27-31), and we can expect there will be many related events. Here's the schedule in English . . .
Writing Chinese Launch – Chen Xiwo 陈希我 in Leeds
October 9th, 2014 @4.30 pm – 6.00 pm. Venue to be announced
We’re delighted to be joined by author Chen Xiwo, translator Nicky Harman, and Make-Do Publishing’s Harvey Thomlinson for the official launch of ‘Writing Chinese’. Chen will be reading from his new collection The Book of Sins (冒犯书), which will be followed by a talk and discussion by Chen, Nicky and Harvey.
Grandpa Zhao’s narration was forever populated with fairy foxes, Siberian weasel spirits, and serpents. We were terribly afraid of these creatures, and all of them were inseparable from Number 7’s courtyard. It seemed behind that small gate were hidden innumerable deadly demons:
It was an inauspicious residence. No one would rent or buy it. In 1900, during the reign of Qing Emperor Guangxu, the Eight Allied Armies took the capital, and the retinues of the two palaces – the Emperor’s and the Empress Dowager’s – departed in great haste with Their Highnesses . . .
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 21, '14
The notorious – nay, infamous – Chinese-English Literary Translation course is coming around for its third incarnation this coming September (2014). For five days, translators and writers will gather in Huangshan to pick each other's brains, watch each other work, and try to teach each other a little something. Be part of the event that has launched so many illustrious translation careers! Or at least, introduced some fairly interesting people to one another.
This time, the course is being run by the Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP), in partnership with the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT), and SAPPRFT.
The course will be held this fall, September 22 to 27. The application deadline is August 10: be sure to send your completed application form and a scan of your passport to translation@fltrp.com before then. Attendance free, but you'll have to get yourself there, and also pay for room and board (I had this wrong intially, my apologies!).
The Chinese-to-English writers and workshop leaders are:
- Li Juan, 李娟, led by Andrea Lingenfelter
- Li Pingyi, 李平易, led by Bonnie McDougall
- A Yi, 阿乙, led by Eric Abrahamsen
For more information about the course, you can download the full information sheet.
"Writing Chinese Literary History: A Tweet for Sore Eyes" by Sabina Knight - in which she describes how she wrote "Chinese Literature: A Very Short Introduction"
Available 26 August. The publisher's website also has features on Han Dong (interviews and other short stories).
Recent posts on Chinese writers by Bertrand Mialaret have featured: Yu Hua, Wu Ming-yi, Mo Yan, Qiu Xiaolong, Xiao Hong, Xinran, Hwang Chun-ming, Mu Xin, Chen Kaige...
As a prisoner, I am fascinated by others in my predicament, especially by those imprisoned in other countries. Running Through Beijing begins in a Chinese prison, or more accurately, with the words, “I’m out,” spoken by Dunhuang, a former seller of fake I.D.’s. We don’t get a look inside an actual prison until later when he goes to see his friend, and then we only go as far as the visiting room...
Penguin Books is recruiting an acquisitions editor. You will be responsible for building Penguin's award-winning publishing list in the English language, finding books for us to publish, and managing the editing and print process. ... This position will be based in Hong Kong, Beijing, or Shanghai, and applicants should be native-level English speakers. For a full job description, please email info@cn.penguingroup.com with a recent resume and cover letter before August 15, 2014.
'Writing Chinese: Authors, Authority and Authorship' is a new project based at the White Rose East Asia Centre in the University of Leeds, UK. Bringing together writers, translators, publishers, literary agents and academics working in the field of contemporary Chinese literature, we aim to foster closer links and dialogue, and to help promote contemporary Chinese writers in the UK.
The project is funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and will involve a series of talks, readings and other activities over the coming academic year, culminating in a symposium at Leeds in summer 2015. We will be holding a translation masterclass and competition, as well as a regular blog on this website, featuring articles on contemporary Chinese fiction and interviews with writers, translators, and others working in the field. And beginning in October, we will also be running a monthly virtual book club, focusing on up-and-coming authors.
There are several noteworthy things about this brief report:
The word “Kyrgyz” is not used to describe the cadre, the epic poem or the language used in the manuscript . . .
By Nicky Harman, July 10, '14
If you're in London, come and join a lively discussion about the possibility and impossibility of translation, at the FreeWordCentre. Joining Xiaolu Guo for the evening's discussion are her editor-turned-agent Rebecca Carter, and Free Word's former Translator in Residence Nicky Harman. Together, they'll use the novel, I am China as a starting point to explore questions of translation, censorship, Chinese culture, and what it means to call a country your home. Book in advance. It's 21 July 7pm.
By Canaan Morse, July 9, '14
My contact with China-focused academic presses has increased substantially over the past three months or so, and each one of them has come back looking for Chinese to English translators qualified to take on academic projects, usually monographs on topics in the humanities -- Chinese social science, political economy, literary history and theory are just a few examples. Sourcing translators for academic work can be harder than sourcing for trade, for reasons I'll list below, so I thought I would put out an open call here to get everyone's attention.
More…
The Book of Sins by Chen Xiwo, tr Nicky Harman (Make Do Publishing) -- winner of a 2014 English PEN award for promotion.
A Perfect Crime by A Yi, tr Anna Holmwood (Oneworld Publications) -- winner of a 2014 English PEN grant for translation.
The author had earlier pledged to turn himself in on his return from Australia.
"On the surface the government appears to be stronger than ever … yet it is actually so fragile that its leaders lose sleep when a few scholars meet and talk in a private home," he wrote in the New York Times in May.
"If the situation in China continues to deteriorate, I cannot stand idly by. If I too am arrested, perhaps more Chinese people will awaken to the realities of their situation. My arrest will be my contribution to resisting government efforts to erase the nation's memory."
In yet another move that emphasizes how much $$ China is spending to take its literature global, the 2014 list of finalists for the “China Classics International Publication Project” (经典中国国际出版工程) has just been announced. It comprises 256 titles that will be translated into 27 languages . . .
Interesting papers on the draft programme...
By Nicky Harman, June 13, '14
Save the date.
Booking here: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event162774.html
By Bruce Humes, June 13, '14
I recently made a number of suggestions on concrete steps that could help ensure greater success for the “campaign to take Chinese literature global.” They are detailed in Open Letter to China Literary Exports, Inc..
中华读书报 (China Reading Weekly) interviewed me about my proposal, including the establishment of a Translator-in-Residence program. If you'd like to read the interview (in Chinese), and see the part of the draft text that was deleted just before publication, visit 建议：建立 ‘驻地翻译基金’，积极征募外国翻译家到中国短期居住.
Along with the Tibetan King Gesar and the Oirat's Janggar, the Kyrgyz Manas is one of China's three officially recognized, classic oral epics originating among non-Han peoples.
Jusup Mamay, the last master "manaschi" (玛纳斯奇) capable of performing all 8 parts of the massive trilogy, has just passed away . . .
The China Xibe Language and Culture Research Center in Ili, Xinjiang, has announced that it will soon begin systematically recording speakers of this Tungusic tongue that is closely related to Manchu (锡伯语言数字化). This is part of the national “Chinese Language Audio Database Project” (中国语言资源有声数据库工程) inaugurated in 2008 by the State Language Commission, and the center aims to complete the Xibe portion by August 2015 . . .
By Eric Abrahamsen, May 24, '14
We're not blocked, are we? 'Course, it's hard to tell these days, they seem to be blocking most everything…
