Our News, Your News
By Nicky Harman, August 26, '08
Richard Lea at the Guardian newspaper (UK) has some new "Original Writing" on China in the Books online section.
On 25 August 2008: China reflected: Hari Kunzru kicks off a series of new short stories by Chinese and British writers with the tale of some very partisan pandas. Those of us who attended the Moganshan Literary Translation workshops in March 2008 will find that Hari (who also attended as a visiting writer) has set his lovely and funny story in a place which uncannily resembles Moganshan!
And two weeks earlier, on 11 August, my translated excerpt from Jia Pingwa's new novel Happy (Gaoxing) appeared. Lets hope that features like this attract publishers' attention...
By Cindy M. Carter, August 18, '08
Well worth a look is Joel Martinsen's August 14th post on Danwei.org ("How the Nazis brought about the end of the Cultural Revolution"), which examines the political and historical background to Chinese translations of works by Trotsky, William L. Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) and others.
The post includes a full translation of Luo Xuehui's article in China Newsweek. Here is an excerpt from Joel's preface:
The translations belonged to a category known as "grey books" (灰皮书), translations of foreign political and sociological texts not intended for public circulation. Limited-circulation translations of foreign literary works were known as "yellow books" (黄皮书). In the early 1960s, when China was engaged in an ideological battle with the Soviet Union, its party leadership needed to read "revisionist" works in order to understand and combat the arguments of the opposition.
The books and their translators were addressed by two Chinese newsweeklies this summer. In a lengthy New Century Weekly feature on the genesis and influence of yellow and grey books, Zheng Yifan explained how the "grey book" project grew out of a mission to translate the works of Trotsky into Chinese...
Read the full post on Danwei.
By Cindy M. Carter, August 9, '08
On August 7th 2008, The PEN American Center held an event in New York City in support of over 40 Chinese writers and journalists who have been detained, imprisoned, harassed or prevented from publishing their writings in China. See the PEN American website for more information about the featured authors and readings (includes audio recordings, Chinese and English texts and photos).
Although this was not included in the readings, I’d like to add this couplet by Li Rui (former secretary to Mao Zedong) written during his eight years in Beijing’s Qincheng Prison:
How does a life in letters make a prison?
I’ve surpassed my own self-criticism.
By Nicky Harman, August 1, '08
Han Dong's book 《扎根》 (published in 2009 as Banished!, was long-listed for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.
There were a number of things which convinced me I wanted to translate Banished! I liked the fact you can read the novel at different levels. He describes village life carefully, sometimes lovingly, but there is an underlying sense of political tension. There is humor, often scatological, but the depiction towards the end of the book of Tao, the frustrated writer, is bitter and painful. The language is occasionally lyrical but usually appears quite plain; then again, there are parts which are enigmatic to say the least, especially when they come from the unnamed ‘I’ voice. The emotional relationships are understated, but there is real warmth in the adults’ protectiveness of the child, young Tao, and the latter’s feelings for his father. I hope that this excerpt at least gives a flavor of some of these qualities.
More…
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 1, '08
In the run-up to the Olympics, PEN is holding an event centered around China's imprisoned or threatened writers and journalists. This will take place in New York on August 7, at The New School's Tishman Auditorium. From the press release:
On August 7, the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, PEN American Center will honor the more than 40 writers and journalists currently being held in Chinese prisons for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Acclaimed American writers will come together on stage at this special event to break the silence—or what has been called the Great Firewall—that threatens the work and lives of Chinese writers.
Edward Albee, Russell Banks, Philip Gourevitch, Jessica Hagedorn, Hari Kunzru, Rick Moody, Martha Southgate, Francine Prose, and others will read new and previously untranslated statements and writings by several of the jailed writers and other dissidents and members of the Independent Chinese PEN Center.
On the off chance that anyone's there and attending, send a report or a photo, will you?
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 30, '08
My our window on the world is awfully small… It sounds as though there's a fascinating discussion on translation in the latest issue of Calque, a journal of literature in translation, but we wouldn't know if it weren't for Three Percent, who have posted a bit of it:
"To tell the truth, I suspect that readers who can compare translations and originals actually tend to be worse judges of the quality of a translation than people who are unable to read the original. [. . .]
"Of course, readers who can access both the original and the translation are able to find obvious mistakes, and that’s something only they can do, and that can be important. But surely that’s not what we mean when we ask what distinguishes good translations from bad? We’re interested in something that runs deeper, I would hope—not something so superficial that any old multilingual reader can come along and point it out after a hasty comparison of the two texts. [. . .]"
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 30, '08
The Guardian continues its foray into Chinese letters with a brief reading and audio interview with Zhu Wen:
"I am a quite ordinary person. Ordinary means, I think, [someone who] can't express what he feels. In China it's rare that people could do that, they keep silent. Speaking out, and facing the reality of China, is a writer's job. You must do it.
By Cindy M. Carter, July 29, '08
Claire Li's post on the Make Do Studios website analyzes some of the reasons Bertelsmann AG's business model failed in China:
"Why did Bertelsmann's China business fail? Some people say it has to do with the prevalence of pirated books here. But obviously, people who hold this view have not caught on to the state of the book market in China nowadays [...]
"Bertelsmann continued opening bookstores around the country without realizing how greatly the internet would influence people's shopping habits. People buy books on Dangdang and Joyo for its wide selection, low discounts, fast delivery, its payment-upon-receipt system, and freedom from any membership requirements like having to buy a book each month. Bertelsmann, by contrast, not only had a limited choice of books and poorer discounts, but it added another requirement last year that its platinum members had to spend RMB 299 per year or else be bumped down to a lower level. An understandable amendment, since the book club's overhead is high, but nobody wants to be forced to spend money."
read the complete article
Update: Another take on Bertelsmann's China venture (from Chen Gang, a journalist at China Publishing Today)
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 26, '08
Ha Jin Wants to Visit China:
"Jin, who teaches English at Boston University, said Saturday he's interested in visiting China but is discouraged by the difficulty of publishing Chinese translations of his English books in the mainland. He said he also applied to become a visiting professor at the elite Peking University in Beijing in 2004 but never heard back."
Gao Xingjian doesn't:
"Instead, the writer's focus is his new life in France, a country he had visited several times as an interpreter before his exile. He now has French citizenship and said he had no trouble integrating into French society, something he attributes to having grown up with Western culture."
A Defense of Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem:
"Also welcome, in my view, is Jiang Rong’s willingness to merge his tale of environmental destruction with an open discussion of Han Chinese cultural and political imperialism."
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 26, '08
Has it been a year already? The long list for the 2008 Man Asia Literary Prize has been announced; only three of the twenty titles are Chinese. In our corner:
- Banished!, by Han Dong, translated by our very own Nicky Harman!
- Leave Me Alone, Chengdu (成都，今夜请将我遗忘), by Murong Xuecun.
- Brothers, by Yu Hua.
The qualification rules for the competition state that the books need to be submitted in English manuscript, but the English version must not have been published yet. Banished! and Brothers have publication dates, but I hadn't heard that anyone was translating Leave Me Alone, Chengdu. Murong Xuecun's appearance on the list is interesting – he was one of the early internet authors, writing vaguely adolescent stories of youth and urban anomie, but he's taken on a steadily more 'serious' tone. I haven't read Chengdu, but I head it's pretty good. Anyway, if anyone knows who translated either Brothers or Chengdu, leave a comment! The shortlist arrives September 1st, the final winner to be announced at the end of September.
Via Three Percent.
Update: Murong Xuecun's book was translated by Harvey Thomlinson, and there's a lengthy excerpt online here.
