"Death Notice": Tweaking the Tale to Capture the Foreign Eye

https://cn.nytimes.com/culture/20180605/zhou-haohui-death-notice-chinese-crime-thrillers/zh-hant/dual/

For commercial rather than political reasons, Mr. Zhou’s literary agent here also made changes in the English-language version of the book, translated by Zac Haluza. The action now takes place in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, not Yangzhou or nearby Nanjing, the cities Mr. Zhou said he had in the back of his mind when crafting the story. The assumption was that Chengdu, which is best known for pandas and spicy food, would be recognizable to foreign readers and give the drama a more visceral feel, Rob Bloom, Mr. Zhou’s editor at Doubleday, said in an email.

周浩暉的美國文學代理人出於商業原因,而非政治原因,也對該書的英文版做了些改動,英文版由扎克·哈盧扎(Zac Haluza)翻譯。英文版的故事發生在四川省會成都,而不是揚州或鄰近的南京。周浩暉表示,他在構思這個故事時,頭腦中一直想的是這兩座城市。周浩暉在雙日出版社的編輯羅布·布魯姆(Rob Bloom)在接受電子郵件採訪時表示,這是出於這樣的考慮以熊貓和辛辣食物聞名的成都為外國讀者所熟知,更可能會讓讀者產生身臨其境的感覺。

attached to: Death Notice

Comments

# 1.   

Well, at least they didn't relocate it to the ubiquitous Beijing . . .

Bruce Humes, June 8, 2018, 12:40a.m.

# 2.   

The Chinese translation of the article refers to a US-based agent; when I read this piece a couple days ago, I assumed based on the Yangzhou dateline that "Mr. Zhou’s literary agent here" referred to someone in China.

jdmartinsen, June 8, 2018, 2:54a.m.

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