By Eric Abrahamsen, January 19, '12
How to feel like a complete noob at the Chinese internet:
Step One: Browse weibo. Notice heated discussions about something called 目田, which apparently means "eye field". Have the vague feeling that you're not getting the joke.
Step Two: Finally catch on that 目田 (eye field) is just 自由 (freedom), with bits missing.
If only the internet censors were this slow…
By Nicky Harman, January 18, '12
Danny Hahn from the UK Translators Association would like to organise an informal get-together for practising Chinese-to-English translators in or around the bookfair. Please contact him direct: d.hahn@uea.ac.uk.
By Nicky Harman, January 18, '12
Following the great success of last year’s Summer School, we are delighted to announce the expanded Summer School 2012. This five-day event will take place at Birkbeck University of London (43 Gordon Square WC1H 0PD) on 9-13 July 2012. It comprises courses in translation into English from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – each language subject to a minimum group-size of five students – and an editing skills course for all. There will also be games, a competition, meet-the-publishers, and guest lectures and workshops.
By Nicky Harman, January 16, '12
At the Free Word Translator Residency we ran a BookclubFest where I was approached by Steve Wasserman of the Short Story Bookclub asking for a Han Dong story. The long and the short of it is that I provided The Deer Park and he recorded it. I was over the moon when I listened, and I love the picture he provided too. The story seems to acquire a whole new life of its own as it’s being read alive. This particular website provides all sorts of podcast stories for free (NB he doesn’t pay the writer/translator). There’s at least one other UK–based site I know of that does something similar. I very much like the idea, as a great alternative to printed short story collections.
Winning the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2009 for his novel The Boat to Redemption expanded the ambit of his influence, winning him more fans outside of China. The story of a disgraced Communist Party official, who lives on a barge, resigned to the life of a social outcast, set against the backdrop of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and seen through the eyes of his teenage son, was also a finalist for the Man Booker International in 2011 - but lost to the American heavyweight Philip Roth. "Prizes are a matter of luck," Su says, sitting under the chiaroscuro lighting of a Chinese diner in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. "True, the Man Asian win improved my popularity among English-speakers to an extent, but, at the end of the day, prizes, being the vice-chairman of Jiangsu Writers' Association - these things do not matter. I was reasonably well known in China by the time I was 26. Now I only want to concentrate on my writing."
By Eric Abrahamsen, January 11, '12
The 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist was announced yesterday, and we were thrilled to see Cindy Carter's translation of Yan Lianke's novel Dream of Ding Village appear as the only Chinese novel. This year's shortlist is long: an unprecedented seven books. Conventional wisdom might indicate that, since three of the past four prize-winners have been Chinese, Yan Lianke has something of an institutional handicap. Let's hope that's not the case—this is a very worthy book.
This is a collector's item. And not just because of its obvious historical importance. The first edition of Pathlight: New Chinese Writing magazine is a metaphor of the cooperation between Chinese and Western agencies - in this case, the influential People's Literature magazine, edited by Li Jingze and the Paper Republic team, helmed by Eric Abrahamsen - to showcase Chinese literature to the rest of the world. What an absolute gem this slender 160-page volume is, in terms of the range of voices it covers, some of them translated for the first time. Kudos to the translators for bringing out the varied textures, emotions, cadences and even the visual appeal in some of the lines penned by the featured Chinese writers represent.
I grew up in places with names like “Winnetka” and “Sewickley,” spellings no doubt based on mangled transliterations of old, even ancient Native American words. I vaguely recall that Sewickley meant “sweet water,” but no one seemed sure.
How many names of cities, mountains and rivers in China, I wondered, conceal their non-Han origins and meanings when written in Chinese characters (hànzì)?
Victims of corruption and injustice have no faith in the law, and yet they dream that an upright official will emerge to right their wrongs. Although a complaint mechanism is in place at all levels of Chinese government, petitioners seem to believe that the central authorities are less susceptible to corruption, and so make Beijing their destination.
When the young Mao Tse-tung agitated for revolution, he found a vivid way to get his point across to an uneducated audience: He picked up a single chopstick and snapped it in two. Then he picked up a handful of chopsticks: They would not break. Thus he showed that so long as everyone stood side by side, no force could withstand the tide of revolution. By gathering together China's scattered, indignant chopsticks, Mao finally was able to ascend Tiananmen — the Gate of Heavenly Peace — on Oct. 1, 1949, and announce the establishment of his republic.
Whether chopsticks come singly or in a handful is now an issue in China again.
Our podcast this week is all about books and money in modern China. If you like us are tired of Lu Xun and Lao She, listen to Sinica this week as we look into the state of contemporary Chinese literature, asking what writers are hot, what writers are not, and even the more humdrum question of how much authors make these days.
Joining host Jeremy Goldkorn today are three of the most knowledgeable people from Beijing publishing circles. We're delighted to be joined by Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin books in North Asia, Eric Abrahamsen of the translation consulting company Paper Republic, as well as Alice Liu, managing editor of the newly-launched translation journal Pathlight, which features translations of works from upcoming Chinese novelists including a piece from a name longtime Popup Chinese listeners will recognize.
The book's 10 chapters present images of ordinary life in China over the past four decades—from the violent, repressive years of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, when the author grew up, to the upheavals and dislocations of the current economic miracle. Along the way, Mr. Yu ranges widely into politics, economics, history, culture and society. His aim, he writes, is to "clear a path through the social complexities and staggering contrasts of contemporary China."
And he succeeds marvelously. "China in Ten Words" captures the heart of the Chinese people in an intimate, profound and often disturbing way. If you think you know China, you will be challenged to think again. If you don't know China, you will be introduced to a country that is unlike anything you have heard from travelers or read about in the news.
The first paper for my college English course, assigned by an American lawyer teaching in Beijing, was on whether China would see an Aids epidemic in the near future. It was 1992, and more than half of my classmates believed that a disease associated with irresponsible or corrupted lifestyles would not claim China. Yet in less than five years, an Aids epidemic broke out in Henan province (and in many other provinces), a result of a blood-selling enterprise established by government officials and business people, where the practice of reusing needles was common. Tens of thousands of peasants were infected; sometimes an entire village was wiped out.
Dream of Ding Village, a novel by Yan Lianke, one of the most prolific and bravest authors to come from China (periodically banned by the government), brings us a disturbing chronicle of one village's deterioration caused by "the spreading fever" (as Aids was called by the local peasants).
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 6, '11
We've had a pleasantly large (read: slightly overwhelming) number of requests for information about Pathlight magazine, and in the interest of keeping things manageable, have created a new page dedicated to Pathlight magazine here on the site: http://paper-republic.org/pubs/pathlight/
The main thing you'll want to do there is sign up for notifications about future issues. That will be an extremely low-volume mailing list, no danger that we'll be filling up your email inbox. The other thing you can do there is gawk at the cover and table of contents. Enjoy!
This brings us to a paradox at the heart of translation: the text we take as inspiration is also the greatest obstacle to expression. Our own language prompts us in one direction, but the text we are trying to respect says something else, or says the same thing in a way that feels very different.
By Alice Xin Liu, November 25, '11
Granta magazine was established in 1889 at the University of Cambridge, named after the river that later became the River Cam.
It has a reputation for being highbrow and presciently published 12 future Booker winners and various Nobel laureates.
Chutzpah! magazine (天南) was established by art curator and poet Ou Ning (欧宁), and so far has only put out four issues. Like Granta, Chutzpah! themes their issues － they are Agrarian Asia, Universal Narratives, Mapping Poetry and Vision of Eros.
On November 20th, the editor and deputy editor of Granta John Freeman and Ellah Allfrey participated in a talk with Ou Ning at One Way Street to discuss the “life and death of literary journals.”
Here is a transcript taken from my notes － readers are welcome to listen to the video linked at the bottom.
John Freeman: Granta was established more than 100 years ago by students at Cambridge. Then American Fulbright scholars restarted it.
Magazines are like blank canvases; without it artists can’t do anything.
Giving writers a space depends on who is available at the time and our ability to find them. Granta’s mission is to find the right writers. We’ve published Czech, Latin American and French writers amongst others, including Kundera, Llosa, Márquez.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 25, '11
Busy days for the Peony Literary Agency, who recently announced the sales of three books from two of their authors: Han Han's Youth and 1988: I Want to Talk to This World have both been bought by Simon & Schuster US, to be translated by Allan Barr and published in the second half of 2012; and Yan Geling's The Flowers of War (金陵十三钗), to Other Press, translated by Nicky Harman, to be published next January.
Congratulations!
For further information please contact Marysia Juszczakiewicz in Hong Kong at marysia@peonyliteraryagency.com, or Tina Chou in Shanghai at tina@peonyliteraryagency.com. Full press releases below:
Heaven – Tibet by Ning Ken (《天•藏》，宁肯著) has won the 2011 Shinai’an Literary Prize (施耐庵文学奖) awarded to a Chinese novel exhibiting an innovative style of narration, along with three other novels: Jia Pingwa’s Old Kiln (《古炉》，贾平凹著), Yan Lianke’s Me and My Father’s Generation (《我与父辈》，阎连科著), and Dong Qizhang’s Tiān gōng kāi wù (《天工开物·栩栩如真》，董启章著).
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 20, '11
So that this shouldn't become a wall of rambling text, I'm going to arrange the rest of my observations and recollections from the Chinese Literature Week in Oslo into easily-digestible bullet points. No actual logical structure or cohesion is implied!
Turnout was amazing—around 4,000 attendees at 30-some events. Not bad for a group of writers few of whom are translated into Norwegian.
A total of seven Chinese authors are available in Norwegian translation, two of whom write in English (Li Yiyun and Guo Xiaolu) and three of whom live outside China (add Ma Jian to the above). The Norwegian publishers I met, to their credit, seem fairly intent on changing this situation. Yu Hua's Brothers is in the works, as is Ai Mi's Under the Hawthorn Tree. Xu Zechen was eyed appraisingly.
The Norwegians are quite generous. Never have I purchased meals with a square of plastic that didn't have to be run through a machine: you gestured with it at the waiters, and they smiled and brought you free food.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 16, '11
I'm in Norway for the House of Literature's Chinese Literature Week (see the link for full schedule). Participants include Xi Chuan 西川, Wang Hui 汪晖, Murong Xuecun 慕容雪村, Ma Jian 马建, Leslie T. Chang, Rebecca Karl, Michael Dutton, Li Yiyun 李翊雲, Hong Ying 虹影, Mian Mian 棉棉, Xu Zechen 徐则臣, Han Song 韩松, Lan Lan 蓝蓝, Cheng Yong Xin 程永新, Zou Zou 走走 and me (thank you Lucas for typing all that up). Annie Baby was supposed to come, but she recently received word that her magazine, Open, was going to be shut, and stayed home instead. The spirit hovering over all this is Halvor Elfring who, besides having a pretty decent name, is Norway's principle sinologist and gracious dinner host of sundry China-related vagabonds [edit: I got Halvor Elfring confused with Harald Bøckman, who has a less exciting name but makes up for it with a great beard].
I'm pleased to be here: we put a fair amount of work into the planning stage of this event ("we" here means Canaan), and it's nice that we can also be present for its execution ("we" here means me). Houses of Literature around the globe, take note!
This is day three of events, but I only arrived last night, so more reports to follow. So far, the House of Literature seems lovely: a large, well-run place offering regular readings and author talks, with a writing center, writer-in-residence quarters, children's literature center, and bookshop. The bookshop had a nice selection of Chinese literature in English and Norwegian translation: Lenin's Kyss by Yan Lianke can only be 受活 (Shouhuo), currently being translated into English by Carlos Rojas. I was also foolishly amused to read of Mo Yan's association with the "Lu Xun-prisen" and the "Mao Dun-prisen". I guess a translator shouldn't laugh at these false cognates—the problem is in your head, after all, not the language—but one permits oneself a little snarkle.
Events have so far been packed: 500+ for writers with no Norwegian translations.
