Our News, Your News
By Charles Laughlin, January 11, '21
Thanks to a tweet from Yilin Wang, I came across an article in Asymptote, Jen Calleja and Sophie Collins, "She knows too much: 'Bridge Translations,' 'Literal Translations,' and Long-Term Harm", which discusses how some collaborative literary translation projects and workshops have perpetuated the problematic distinction between "literal" and "artistic" translations.
This is a fascinating and well-argued article. I agree completely with the thesis that translators are marginalized and it is surprising in a moment when their creative agency is beginning to be recognized, that the act of translating is still often obscured or buried as in the (arguably extreme) example cited in Eleanor Goodman’s epigraph. I would like to point out, however, that I contributed to what I think was a more reasonable project, Zhang Er and Chen Dongdong, eds., Another Kind of Nation: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Talisman, 2007), as a collaborative translator working with a published American poet in a way that resonates with the distinction between "bridge translator" and "real writer." I came away with a vivid sense of how invaluable the contribution of the poet was to my rendition, after quite vigorous give-and-take. If Calleja and Collins’ article clarified anything for me, it was that I probably have not yet attained the status of a literary translator, and that I may not belong to the class defended by the authors, as Eleanor Goodman and many others in the Chinese to English field who themselves are creative writers and often have training in creative writing do. Even if it can (and should) be said that the idea of a literal or bridge translator is unhelpful, misleading or harmful, I think it could also be said that many like myself who translate are academics who arguably were trained to be “literal translators,” sometimes despite ourselves.
I think that while it is essential to assert the subjective and creative aspects of every act of translation, whether conceived of as literal or liberal, at the same time I disagree with the apparent implication that there is no meaningful distinction between a rendition that cleaves closely to the syntax of the source text (and is thus in many cases more ungainly in the target language), and one that soars freely in the target idiom, and which critics and readers would usually value more highly. I agree that the idea of “fidelity” is not useful in clarifying this distinction. But as an instructor of literary translation and a grader of (nonliterary) Chinese-to-English translation exams for the American Translator’s Association, I find the article’s inattention of the role of grammatical and rhetorical structures of the source text as a basis for the idea of a “literal” or “bridge” translation troubling. I would never rely on the degree of adherence to the structure of a source text as an important criterion for evaluating a literary translation, yet I believe the ability to grasp and render those structures, as a matter of academic exercise, is a fundamental ability of any translator, literary or otherwise.
By Jack Hargreaves, January 6, '21
This is the first of a regular news post we're going to be running. For now it will take the form of a round-up of recent news links and upcoming events relevant to Chinese literature and its translation.
If there are specific kinds of links/news you would like to see in the future, mention it in the comments below. Also, if there's anything we've missed, post below too. Thanks!
More…
As your year-end holiday lockdown fast approaches, it’s worth noting a new series of books by non-Han writers launched this year by one of China’s best-known publishers, Yilin Press — lit., “translation forest” — that is normally associated with marketing popular foreign-language fiction in Mandarin for Chinese readers.
The name of the series itself, Library of Contemporary Classics by China’s Multi-ethnic Writers (中国当代多民族经典作家文库), is notable, because it employs the term “multi-ethnic” rather than the former politically correct, ubiquitous reference to “minority ethnic” literature (少数民族文学) that must surely have rankled some.
By Nicky Harman, December 19, '20
Bristol Translates Literary Translation Summer School, 5–8 July 2021
INCLUDES A CHINESE-TO-ENGLISH OPTION
Aimed at practising translators at any stage of their career and at language enthusiasts who want to explore the world of literary translation, Bristol Translates offers the opportunity to work with leading professional translators to translate texts across the literary genres into English. Due to the ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic, the 2021 course will be entirely online, comprising morning and afternoon workshops using a variety of texts including fiction and non-fiction.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sml/translation-studies/bristol-translates/
By Nicky Harman, December 17, '20
It's an honour to post this fascinating essay by Mike Fu, on the backstory behind his translation of Sanmao's Stories of the Sahara.
One of the first things that struck me about Sanmao’s writing was its casual cross-cultural sensibilities. As the narrator and protagonist of Stories of the Sahara, Sanmao settles into life in colonial Africa and spends her days bantering with her husband José, pushing the buttons of the local bureaucrats, and befriending neighbors, store clerks, and hitchhikers. From chapter to chapter, she might reminisce about the “good old days” in Madrid, pine for her native Taiwan, or talk about popular English-language films of the ‘60s and ‘70s. José’s nickname for her is “stranger,” after the novel by Camus. Meanwhile, Sanmao articulates a mythic Chinese cultural lineage – of five thousand years, naturally – to all those around her, slipping in references to Sun Wukong, Zhuangzi, Xin Qiji, and other figures in her narratives.
More…
By Eric Abrahamsen, December 17, '20
Paper Republic became a Charitable Incorporated Organization in the UK in February of 2019, and our first annual report is now due. We got sort of excited, and made a nice-looking report detailing all the fun we've had in the past year, and some of the fun we've got planned for the next year.
It seemed like a nice idea to post this at the same time as our traditional annual roll call of new translation publications, so here you are! Our annual report is here, and the 2020 roll call is here. Enjoy!
By Nicky Harman, December 17, '20
2020: torrid times. Not all of the ones on our 2020 Forthcoming Translations (posted in December 2019) made it into publication this year, but a number of translations from Chinese have still come out.
Kudos to writers, translators and publishers alike!
More…
By Bruce Humes, December 13, '20
In this interview, Pema Tseden --- who writes in both Tibetan and Chinese, and is the first director to shoot a major film entirely in Tibetan --- calls for wider distribution of films that focus on China's ethnic minorites.
"Art film enriches film culture and creativity. If we don’t support it, we’ll only see movies of the same type. A vicious circle will form, wherein audiences think this is what movies are like and cinemas think audiences only accept a certain kind of movie. Ultimately, that will harm the whole industry — creators won’t persist if the market is always like this."
How can we understand China if we don’t know what its most prominent intellectuals are saying? A translation project by David Ownby aims to make up for the absence of Chinese voices in Western discussions about the country that nobody can afford to ignore.
By Helen Wang, December 10, '20
Nicky Harman has just won a major award in China - The Special Book Award of China. It’s the 14th year of the awards and they are a big thing. As she was unable to attend the ceremony in China, on Monday, one of her publishers (Sinoist Books) and Guanghwa Bookshop organised a surprise zoom party for her, inviting the Chinese Cultural Attaché, her authors and friends in the Chinese literature community around the world either to attend in person or to send a short video recording. It was wonderful to see everyone! Even the Cultural Attaché, whose role was to be the official, was bowled over by the genuine friendship and informal atmosphere of the occasion - and that it was a meeting of friends! The organisers have just put the highlights on Youtube - https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=jsW1aUsPvds.
Talk by Prof David De-Wei Wang to the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi
(Wang's new book "Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China" - UP of New England, Brandeis Imprint, Dec 2020, ISBN 9781684580262)
Call for Applications: Two series co-editors, one with expertise in Asian literatures and one with expertise in Middle Eastern and/or African literatures, for Best Translations: An Annual Anthology, a new publishing project
By Jack Hargreaves, December 3, '20
The final sentence of series one went up in mid-July. By the end of the week, the total number of translations contributed since the game's beginning by lots of lovely translators, one of whom doesn't read Chinese and two of which were computer programmes, had reached 139 -- if I've counted right that is, which I don't think I did, so let's just go with 'enough to consider a second series'. So here it is!
Well actually, first, we'd like your help. That's right, not only are we asking you to translate this time around, we're inviting you to suggest the sentences too!
Please send any sentence (or two) from Chinese-language fiction that excites, dazzles, bamboozles or floors you to jack@paper-republic.org (sentences from short stories particularly welcome —— you'll find out why later!).
With every submission, please include: the sentence, book/story it is taken from, page number (if you know it), author, and a little context.
We'll start the new series in 2021.
If you missed series one and you're wondering what this is all about, have a look at the series intro here, with links to the sentences we translated over the eight weeks.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
For the very first time, Sanmao – a name that is so widely known to generations of Chinese readers – has been translated into English by Chinese-American writer and editor Mike Fu.
Join a discussion between Mike and Nicky Harman, who have both translated Chinese women authors with transnational writing experience.
By Bruce Humes, November 25, '20
They are Fang Fang, author of Wuhan Diary, and Uyghur writer Muyesser Abdul'ehed (pen name Hendan Hiyal), now living overseas in Istanbul.
All 100 listed here.
