Our News, Your News
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 11, '08
You readers and lovers of Chinese novels, may we ask your assistance? We're putting together a few lists of books which have not yet been translated into English, but ought to be: from the inexplicably passed-over classics of modern Chinese literature to last year's sleeper hit. What gold has yet to be claimed, either deep-buried, or lying on the sidewalk where anyone could pick it up? We're also counting books that have been translated, but translated poorly, so yes – Fortress Besieged counts.
If you're a translator sitting on the book proposal that's going to make your career, we can sympathize if you keep mum, but we hope the rest of you will cut loose.
I'll start: Jia Pingwa's 废都 (Abandoned Capital). Why the hell is this not in English yet?
By Canaan Morse, December 4, '08
The Chinalyst Best China Blogs contest is open (actually, it's been open for a while) and PR is now in the running! We got a late start, but I'm absolutely confident that with a little publicity we can pull into at least second or third in our category (General).
Here's the link to our category. Go vote!
By Nicky Harman, December 4, '08
Yan Lianke’s latest novel – a satirical take on the less-than-honourable behaviour of Beida and Tsinghua University professors – aroused a storm of protest from some of them. So I was looking forward to this week’s post-graduate seminar in the Beida Chinese Department, where Elegy and Academe was due to be discussed.
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Most of the YA authors who occupy high rankings on the list have launched their own branded magazines. Guo Jingming edits Top Novel, Sharon edits M-Girl, Girlneya (6) edits a self-titled magazine, and Ming Xiaoxi (11) is attached to Princess. Some observers suggested that Guo landed at the top of the list last year because of revenue from Top Novel and the I5land book series.
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 1, '08
Feng Tang is talking at the One Way Street Bookstore this Sunday (Dec 7) from 3pm to 5pm, details here.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 30, '08
I think there were some books there, but it was pretty hard to tell.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 27, '08
The newest edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair newsletter is out (via Three Percent), and includes an interview with Jing Bartz, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair's Beijing Book Information Centre. The most eye-catching of the topics discussed was this:
The minister from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) approved the first list of translation funding shortly before the Frankfurt Book Fair. The amounts range from 2,000 to 7,000 euros per title.
Before anyone gets excited, the deadline for applying for GAPP funding was November 15, and funds were only applicable to books going into German. The interview touches on several other topics of interest (including the privatization of China's publishing houses) so do take a look…
By Nicky Harman, November 27, '08
JoSTrans, The Journal of Specialised Translation, will publish a special issue on translation and Chinese issues in 2010. While the blurb says it focusses on non-literary translation, past issues have ranged very broadly, and no doubt this one will too, given the special nature of Chinese to English translation. I'm always struck by the thoughtful and inspiring (sometimes amusing!) discussions on translation issues on Paper Republic. So if some of you contributors feel inspired to turn your thoughts into an article, click more below, for information.
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"Of course, I'd love to have a wider readership, but it has to come without compromising my integrity as a writer," said Xiu Zhengyang, a Hunan novelist born in 1977. Writers like Xiu make a clear distinction between fiction that aims to entertain and that with literary value. They call the latter "pure literature".
By Elizabeth Watson, November 25, '08
I have just completed Memories of Old Shanghai, a collection of oral histories which involved translating from Shanghainese, to Mandarin, and again into English.
Sometimes it strikes me just how much the older generation has seen. Their experiences are so extraordinarily different from my own; luckily I’ve so far escaped the war, famine, poverty which were ubiquitous during the first half of the twentieth century. Shanghai, in particular, changed enormously through the course of the last century – from the days of the Concessions and its reputation as the ‘Whore of the Orient’, to the brutal Japanese invasion; the Communist victory and ‘Liberation’ in 1949, then acting as the headquarters of the Gang of Four. I was curious to know what the people I passed every day had seen: what they had been through. This was why, in May 2008, I decided to write a book about the older generation living in Shanghai.
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By Nicky Harman, November 20, '08
I was interested in a recent article by Richard Lea of the UK's Guardian newspaper, on the 2008 Man Asia Literary Prize, won this year by a Philipino writer, Miguel Syjuco, and last year by Jiang Rong with Wolf Totem. I've pasted in the article below, but first, my own comment:
In all the discussions on the prize, I think two key points have been missed. One is practical and the other 'conceptual': to get an English language version which has not been published (for the books which originate in languages other than English), you need a translator to spend a year of their time translating a book for nothing, in the hopes that a publisher will pop up later - or you need the publisher of the translation and the translator to do a deal whereby the book is submitted for the prize after the translation deal has been done, but before the book is actually published. That immediately disadvantages the non-English language books in the competition for this prize. On a broader level, the prize is awarded on the basis of the translation to the original author. The problem is that the original and the translation are two separate versions, albeit of the same book. We all know that a good translation can 'improve' a book, and a bad translation can ruin a good book. What about Paper Republic readers' views?
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I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.
余素朴陋，虽有参选之心，并无必胜之志。谋事之初，银资乏匮，从者寥寥；起事之地，皆蔽寓荒斋，不在高阁；成事之基，无非寻常百姓，涓滴之献。
Hong Kong, 13 November 2008 – A panel of three internationally acclaimed authors and experienced literary judges named Filipino author Miguel Syjuco winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado, a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 10, '08
Howard Goldblatt has graciously allowed us to publish this essay of his on the openings of Chinese novels.
In the Beginning
"Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife."
How could anyone not want to keep reading, at least for a while, with an opening line like that?
Or:
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, and then again, as a teenage boy."
Or, finally:
"'Sons of bitches.' Lituma felt the vomit rising in his throat. 'Kid, they really did a job on you.'"
From Melville to Tolstoy and beyond, all the way to Ha Jin, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Mario Vargas Llosa, novelists in the West have assumed that, like a flashy cover, an arresting opening line can go a long way toward starting those pages turning.
When he wrote…
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."
…Nabakov knew he'd get our attention.
We don't, however, see many opening sentences of that nature in novels written in Chinese. After more than thirty years of translating Chinese novels into English, I cannot readily call to mind any I've worked on that provide a riveting, provocative, even outlandish opening. That's not to say they don't exist, or that the rules aren't changing, as cultural globalization gains momentum; it's just that a different, and equally valid, narrative strategy, a more tradition-bound beginning has been the norm in recent decades. I've often wondered what that says about the contemporary Chinese novel. Beyond that, how do expectations and standards of enjoyment or acceptance between Chinese and Western readers of fiction differ?
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