From Publishing Perspectives:
In honor of his “eloquent and fearless battle against political repression,” the German Publishers and Booksellers Association has awarded its prestigious 2012 Peace Prize to Chinese dissident writer Liao Yiwu [廖亦武], who walked out on his native country and landed in Germany a year and a half ago to pursue what he calls “freedom to write and publish.”
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Jidi Majia 吉狄马加, translated by Denis Mair:
Voice of the Bimo
—Dedicated to a Nuosu ritualist
When you hear it
It seems above all illusion
Like a faint wisp of bluish smoke
Why just now are the ranged mountains
Felt to be filled with a timeless stillness?
Whose voice drifts between men and ghosts?
It seems to have left the body
Yet between reality and nothingness
In tones both human and divine it utters
A praise song for life and death
When it invokes sun, stars, rivers, and ancient heroes
When it summons deities and surreal powers
Departed beings commence their resurrection!
毕摩的声音
—献给彝人中的祭司
你听见它的时候
它就在梦幻之上
如同一缕淡淡的青烟
为什么群山在这样的时候
才充满着永恒的寂静
这是谁的声音？它漂浮在人鬼之间
似乎已经远离了人的躯体
然而它却在真实与虚无中
同时用人和神的口说出了
生命与死亡的赞歌
当它呼喊太阳、星辰、河流和英雄的祖先
召唤神灵与超现实的力量
死去的生命便开始了复活！
Nicholas Reid has reviewed Jacob Edmond’s study of world literature & contemporary Chinese, Russian, and American poetry, A Common Strangeness. Here’s how it begins:In the lives of poets, as in the lives of most other people, there has been a great change of consciousness worldwide over the last three or four decades. We have gone from a contest between capitalist West and communist East (with an ill-defined “third world” bending this way and that in the background); to the apparent dominance of capitalism and the market, even in officially “communist” China (with the rumblings of nationalist particularities in the background, especially in the Muslim world). We are also aware of how different cultural exchanges have become in the age of the internet, high-speed communication and a pervasive and internationally-marketed “pop culture”. With varying degrees of approval and disapproval, and with varying and competing definitions, terms like multiculturalism and globalism are now tossed around.
The debate over the “universality” of literature – including poetry – is not a new one, but it becomes more acute in this new global context. By definition, poetry is language, but languages are not universal. Traditionally, the universal was seen to be best expressed in the particular – hence, a poem “understood” worldwide was nevertheless rooted in a particular language and culture, and much of even the most “universal” poem was always untranslatable for those outside that particular language and culture.
How are poets, especially avant-garde poets, responding when they are now – like nearly everybody else – also wired in to an international ‘global’ culture?
Montana Ray of Circumference interviews Eliot Weinberger on his translation of Spanish and Chinese poetry:
In this episode celebrated translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger tells how he came to translate Octavio Paz and Bei Dao and talks about the process of translating their work. He discusses how waves of translation in the US have been spurred by changing political realities, and how those translations have impacted contemporary American poetry. The conversation also includes Weinberger’s thoughts on the deeper role of translation, both as a social function (bringing something new into your own language) and as an act (reaching for the inaccessible, unnamable).
Click the image above or listen here:
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from Yvette Neisser Moreno:
Dear fellow translators,
I am delighted to announce that starting October 1st, I will be teaching an online poetry translation workshop via The Writer’s Center. Now, for the first time, my translation workshop is open to any English speaker with internet access, anywhere in the world! I would deeply appreciate if you could spread the word to anyone who might be interested: students, poets, linguists, etc. Feel free to re-distribute to your own list.
Playing Another Tune: Poetry and Translation
Instructor: Yvette Neisser MorenoIt is no coincidence that most famous poets also have translated poetry. Translating allows you to deeply understand how a poem is composed and to stretch your poetry muscles—by playing with words—while following someone else’s script. We will begin by reading short essays by poets about how translating has influenced their own writing. Then, the workshop will follow this format: Students (1) translate a poem they love (from any language into English); (2) share what they discovered about the poet’s techniques or style; and (3) write their own poem using those techniques or style. Both translations and original poems will receive feedback from instructor and classmates.
Dates: 10/1/2012-11/9/2012
Duration: Six weeks
Location: Online
Cost: $169.95 for Writer’s Center members; $190 for non-membersHow to Register:
Online: www.writer.org > Workshops > Browse workshops by genre > “Poetry” or “Translation”For more information, contact the instructor at her website.
POEMS FROM THE CHANGING ROOM 更衣室
A BILINGUAL POETRY READING AT JAMES COHAN GALLERY
ZHAI YONGMING 翟永明 WITH AWARD-WINNING TRANSLATIONS BY ANDREA LINGENFELTER
SATURDAY, 15 SEPTEMBER AT 6PM
James Cohan Gallery: Yueyang Road 170, Building 1, Lane 1 near Yongjia Road | 岳阳路170弄1号楼1楼，近永嘉路
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Xi Chuan reading at Pacific Lutheran University in January of 2012; introduction and reading of my translations by Paul Manfredi. Via china Avant-garde.
At Magma Poetry Mark Burnhope has posted his review of Jade Ladder, the recent anthology of contemporary Chinese poetry published in the UK. Burnhope is new to Chinese poetry, and he doesn’t know whether family names come first or last in Chinese, but he raises some nice questions about translation in his enthusiastic take on Chinese poetry today. Here’s how it begins:
In his essay concluding Jade Ladder, Brian Holton discusses the trials, tribulations, negotiations and compromises involved in translating Chinese poetry into English. Some of Yang Lian and Qin Xiaoyu’s first choices were shelved, he writes, “because the joke just wasn’t funny in English”, poems “were speaking only to Chinese readers’, or they ultimately “fell flat in translation”. The translators generally avoided footnotes unless they appeared in original poems, or unless they would “transform a poem that otherwise would be closed to the reader into something more accessible and enjoyable”.
As Part of The Guardian‘s reporting on the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference, Xi Chuan was interviewed on the politics of writing as viewed from China:
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Here‘s how The Guardian introduces the report:
We have carried the opening polemics on the website over the course of the conference, so decided to devote this podcast to finding out what some of the other delegates attending the conference felt, asking them how relevant are the questions posed today, how do the issues differ from country to country, and is it possible to identify a way forward.
Our interviewees hailed from everywhere from Argentina to Pakistan, Boston to Beijing: they include Junot Diaz, Elif Shafak, Kamila Shamsie, Alan Bissett, Patrick Ness, Carlos Gamerro, Denise Mina and Xi Chuan.
