By Eric Abrahamsen, October 3, '11
This month's newsletter is going out now… Actually that would be September's newsletter, but hell, everyone's on vacation. Things I like in this issue: Ge Fei finally published the final volume in his "Utopia" series, titled Southern Spring (春尽江南), and Lawrence Li of Tangcha (唐茶) is producing really beautiful Chinese-language e-Books, selling them via iOS, and… people are buying them. Sign up here!
By Lucas Klein, September 27, '11
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.
By Canaan Morse, September 24, '11
I would say, Watch out, Eric's been putting his name on legally binding documents, but it's good news! Last week, PR signed a pair of contracts with People's Literature Publishing House (人民文学出版社) in which we agreed to provide translation, marketing and representation services for the People's Literature booklist. We'll be reviewing both their new and old titles, creating English introductions and samples and selling the really good ones. We've actually been doing this with them for a few months now already, this just makes it official!
For translators, this means we are going to have an abundance of high-quality work to do in just the next couple of months. While most pieces will be fairly short (5,000 words or so), we do have one large-scale translation in the pipeline that will require samples for their review. All payment will be done by us, which means the money will be GOOD. We promise. That's why we're in this business. So send an email either to me (Canaan) or Eric at (our first name@paper-republic.org), preferably with a resume, and let us know you're interested!
He would have been 130 on Sunday (Sept 25), but in popular imagination it is the image of a 50-ish Lu Xun - scruffy-haired, mustachioed, square-jawed and imbued with a steely gaze - that has endured.
...and thank God for that, since I expect the image of a 130-ish Lu Xun would be a damn sight worse.
By Eric Abrahamsen, September 20, '11
Seems like all the literary events I've been to recently have been about A Yi's new book, Guaren (寡 人, literally "the lonely one", a term the Emperor used to refer to himself). The book is hard to categorize: taken largely from a blog he once kept on the cutting-edge "Bullogger" blogging platform, it consists of short chunks – anywhere from a sentence to ten pages – of writing, some chunks obviously fictional, some more journal-like. Among them are early forms of some of his stories – "The Bird Saw Me" and Cat and Mouse (which is appearing in Today magazine next month, under a new title, I forget which) – as well as, one assumes, some ideas that never made it into fiction at all. One of these, titled "Warmth", I've translated below. Enjoy!
By Canaan Morse, September 16, '11
Endure: Poems by Bei Dao. Trans. Clayton Eshleman and Lucas Klein. Boston: Black Widow Press. 2011. 131 pages, CN/EN duotext. ISBN: 978-0-9842640-8-7
When reading a well-known poet for the first time, it’s natural to distrust one’s ear—to hold the poet’s reputation in the periphery of one’s mental sight and weigh one’s own judgments against it. This even more so for poetry in translation, as one assumes a great distance between the accessible translation and (often) inaccessible original, which converses with such a different audience. Such considerations make it easy to play down genuine impressions of the text and be timid where one should be bold.
Publishing is no easy matter in China. Foreign companies can only put out books in partnership with official publishers. Penguin China has now published more than 200 such titles in English and Chinese.
It can also be a lonely affair. There are no trade organisations to recognise foreign businesses and offer prizes. Penguin was therefore proud to be awarded the 2010 Continued Commitment Award in the annual Cathay Pacific China Business Awards. Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin China, says: “To have this independent recognition of our work in this challenging market meant a great deal.”
By Nicky Harman, September 9, '11
Book Club Fest
Love reading? Enjoy talking about books with other people? Interested in other countries? Come and join us for an evening of reading foreign stories in translation from countries including China, Mexico and Sweden. VENUE: Free Word Centre, Wednesday 21 September 2011 6.30 – 8.30pm. How it works: Register online and we’ll email you all the texts as PDFs. Read the stories, then when you arrive at Free Word on the night you’ll receive a printout of them all, plus a free glass of wine. There’s 1 room, lots of book clubs, lots of short stories, and lots of book-lovers. Join a group, take part in the discussion, move around when the bell rings, then all come together at the end and share your thoughts!
Free, but registration essential
By Eric Abrahamsen, September 6, '11
After a fairly lukewarm showing on Day 1, attendance at the book fair spiked noticeably on September 1st and 2nd. A number of the major Chinese publishers (like Fonghong and People’s Literature) held their major events during these days, and the digital publishing booth had a fairly full schedule. Open Book, Ltd. gave two presentations on the 1st related to digital publishing in China, the first a market analysis and the second designed around the results of a reader’s survey carried out among online readers and bookshop visitors.
By Canaan Morse, September 1, '11
Yesterday was the first day of Beijing’s 18th annual International Book Fair, now in a new venue, the New China International Exhibition Center (新国展), which is right next to the airport in Shunyi. The location is huge: the fair is only using four of eight total exhibition rooms in one of the three main buildings, and even then the space feels pretty empty. This year’s Guest of Honor is The Netherlands, who have set up a white-and-pale blue pavilion reminiscent of the Shanghai Expo last year, and they are joined in their hall by representatives from all the major European and Asian countries. That same space houses all the major foreign publishing enterprises who came to the fair, and it is one clear center of activity. Penguin has a huge booth; W.W. Norton, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, MacMillan, McGraw-Hill, Harper’s and Hachette are all here, as well as the major university presses from England and America.
By Nicky Harman, August 30, '11
At the London FREE WORD CENTRE.
I will be one of the London Free Word Centre’s Translators-in-Residence this autumn and have organised a series of events for adults and chidren loosely focussed on China/Chinese and translation. You don’t have to be a translator or to speak Chinese to join in and all are welcome.
"Ideally, translators translate, proofreaders proofread and editors edit. Commissioning a translator to edit, including deleting and even rewriting, means that the translator is no longer solely dedicated to retelling the story faithfully, but is being actively encouraged to question the value of the text. For me, that would be an unwanted diversion."
Controversial German Sinologist Wolfgang Kubin was recently in Shenzhen where he spoke at some length on three subjects: What makes for “good literature” (好的文学)? “Good language” (好的语言)? And if a Chinese author writes in a foreign tongue, what sorts of changes occur?
Sixty-plus judges have voted on the initial long list—187 books long—for the 2011 Mao Dun Literature Prize. It's worthy of note that two of the top twenty vote-getters are set in “Greater Tibet,” i.e., in Tibet proper or in areas of the PRC that have traditionally been home to many Tibetans. They are. . .
By Canaan Morse, August 5, '11
We admit to being despicably late with this, and hope that Kadi defer from poisoning our coffee.
The Bookworm and English Trackers are hosting another Translation Slam and looking for two Chinese to English translators. How it works: translators tackle a Chinese text, and then present their versions on stage, fielding questions from the audience. This month, we will be translating an excerpt from the script (600 characters) of the play The Great Bruce Lee Romance: a Beijing Love Story. Full of love, angst and Beijing hua this original piece is sure to strike a chord with Beijingren of all nationalities. You will be given the excerpt as well as a synopsis in English for additional background information. If you are interested, please contact Kadi (kadi@chinabookworm) for more information about the event and payment. The event will be held Wednesday, August 17 at 7:30pm at The Bookworm.
