Found in Translation: Five Chinese Books You Should Read

In yesterday’s post on the review of Bei Dao’s The Rose of Time: New and Selected Poems (New Directions, edited by Eliot Weinberger), I also mentioned the short collection of Bei Dao’s poetry Endure (Black Widow Press), which I translated with Clayton Eshleman. That collection earned a gracious mention–along with books by Yan Lianke 阎连科, Han Shaogong 韩少功, Yu Hua 余华, and Nobel Prize-winner Mo Yan 莫言–from the editors of Path Light on their Wall St. Journal blog post, “Found in Translation: Five Chinese Books You Should Read.”

Take a look at the full listing!

Julia Lovell on Chinese Fiction Translations

Translator and scholar Julia Lovell has a long review in the UK-based Prospect magazine on the new crop of Chinese fiction translations on offer from Path Light and Chutzpah 天南, English-language journals published in China. She discusses only fiction and doesn’t mention poetry, but here’s a taste of her worthy piece:

Pathlight and Chutzpah try to favour younger authors, who have so far been relatively neglected both in China and in translation. For the past decade, the dominant form in literary Chinese fiction has been the realist historical novel set mainly in Maoist China, as penned by male authors born in the late 1950s or early 1960s (Life and Death are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan, Su Tong’s The Boat to Redemption and others). These grand narratives have been preoccupied with the traumatic landmarks of Maoism: land reform, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and so on. Both Chutzpah and Pathlight, by contrast, draw attention to novelists born between the late 1960s and 1980s. These generations of writers are broadly unified by a couple of shared literary characteristics: by a strongly individualistic, personal voice and by a determination to illuminate (often with wry humour or playful surrealism) the intense strangeness of the capitalist society that the Chinese Communist party is now building.

China Daily on Path Light

The China Daily has an enthusiastic review by Chitralekha Basu of the recently published Path Light: New Chinese Writing, titled “One for the Ages.” The opening paragraph matches enthusiasm with detailed context:

This is a collector’s item. And not just because of its obvious historical importance. The first edition of Pathlight: New Chinese Writing magazine is a metaphor of the cooperation between Chinese and Western agencies – in this case, the influential People’s Literature magazine, edited by Li Jingze and the Paper Republic team, helmed by Eric Abrahamsen – to showcase Chinese literature to the rest of the world. What an absolute gem this slender 160-page volume is, in terms of the range of voices it covers, some of them translated for the first time. Kudos to the translators for bringing out the varied textures, emotions, cadences and even the visual appeal in some of the lines penned by the featured Chinese writers represent.

The review says less about the poetry: only,

The poetry section features six names, most of them born on the cusp of 1970. These, including the widely translated Xi Chuan, are seasoned, well-honed voices, who have been at their craft for a while, having evolved their own poetic idiom.

I loved the minimalist poems of Yu Xiang, especially the one about making friends with fellow women and then losing them along the way. It’s a very universal theme and quite unsentimentally put across.

I’m also a fan of Yu Xiang 宇向, and of Fiona Sze-Lorrain‘s translations. I have to admit, however, that I feel a bit queasy every time I see a reference to anyone–especially Xi Chuan–in the Chinese press that makes mention of being “widely translated.” Coming from a non-Chinese national such as Basu it’s probably no more than an objective–if relative–fact, or even praise of Xi Chuan’s border-crossing quality. But–and this may seem counter-intuitive to anyone not familiar with the political context of Chinese cultural standards–very often when certain Chinese figures talk about Chinese writers being “widely translated,” it comes with an insinuation that the writer is translated because his or her work is not “Chinese” enough (as if such a thing were quantifiable, or at odds with gaining an international following). Leaving aside the question of whether Xi Chuan is in fact “widely translated,” I’ve encountered situations where people have used this observation to denigrate his work–even when referring to what I think of as his most “Chinese” pieces!

China Rhyming on Path Light

My copy of Path Light just arrived in the mail yesterday, but it got too beat-up in the mail from Beijing to take a photo of (and this despite the bubble-wrap envelope!), so I won’t give you a shot of my translation of Xi Chuan’s “Looking at the Mural in the Ruicheng Temple of Eternal Joy” 观芮城永乐宫壁画 on the back cover.

Instead, I’ll post a link to Paul French‘s write-up on his China Rhyming blog.

Path Light on Podcast

Over at Popupchinese‘s Sinica series, host Jeremy Goldkorn is joined by Paper Republic‘s Eric Abrahamsen and Alice Liu, managing editor of Path Light: New Chinese Writing, as well as Jo Lusby, general manager of Penguin books in North Asia, for a special podcast on Path Light and the state of contemporary Chinese literature.

Despite the fact that Xi Chuan’s work (in my translation) is joined by that of five other poets–Lei Pingyang 雷平阳, Sun Lei 孙磊, Hou Ma 侯马, Yu Xiang 宇向, and Wong Leung Wo 王良和–the discussion says not a word about Chinese poetry. Still, it’s a worthwhile and informative podcast nonetheless.

Path Light Notifications Signup

Path Light, the new English-language journal produced by Paper Republic and People’s Literature 人民文学, is beginning to have a web presence. Sign up here for information & notification on news and new issues. And as an added bonus, here’s the table of contents of the first issue, including four Xi Chuan pieces in my translation:

Feature: 8th Mao Dun Literature Prize

Zhang Wei You Are on the Highland
Liu Xinglong Holy Heaven’s Gate
Liu Zhenyun A Word is Worth Ten Thousand Words

Fiction / Non-Fiction

Jiang Yitan ‘China Story’
Di An ‘Williams’ Tomb’
Qi Ge ‘The Sugar Blower’
Xiang Zuotie ‘A Rare Steed for the Martial Emperor’ and ‘Raising Whales’
Li Juan ‘The Winter of 2009’ and ‘The Road to Weeping Spring’

Poetry

Lei Pingyang Prayer-Poem on Mt. Jinuo, White Herons, Keeping a Cat, Going Home for a Funeral, The Myna Bird Asks a Question, Collectivist Insect Calls, and Abandoned City
Hou Ma Bloodsucking Rapture, Subway, Li Hong’s Kiss and A Wolf? In Sheep’s Clothing?
Sun Lei Travel
Yu Xiang Sunlight Shines Where It’s Needed, My House, They, A Gust of Wind, Low Key, It Goes Without Saying, Holy Front and Street
Wong Leung Wo At Midnight, I See Your Shoes in the Bathroom, Father, This is the Last Day, The Story of Santa and I Thought We Wouldn’t Meet Again
Xi Chuan The Body and History, Ill Fortune H 00325, Looking at the Mural in the Ruicheng Temple of Eternal Joy and Dragon

Editor’s Pick

Li Er

‘Stephen’s Back’