Foreign literature translated to Chinese

[龙杰]

I have curiosity to know what kind of foreign literary influences have arrived to China through Chinese language.

I think nowadays there are a lot of English literature translated to Chinese, but what about literature in Japanese, Spanish, French....? Are these commonly known by Chinese people?

My first impression is that foreign literature translated to Chinese is very limitated. Is that true?

[ananda]

Well, I think there're many French, English, Russian literature

translated into Chinese. For example, Mr. Fu Lei, translated

many French novels to chinese, and I think he's the best French-

chinese translator, only from the sentences, it's 'hard' to know

it's wrotten by French originally. From my point of view, French

novels(my favorite) are delicate style. English, very realistic;

Russian, sometimes heroic, sometimes delicate, it seemed the

russian people are 'childlike' people. Japanese novels, 'full of

corpse smell', which is too dusky.

BTW, I've seen many chinese literature translated into english,

i could easily find many stupid work in them. So, good

translation is not translation, it's re-creation.

[龙杰]

Ananda, it is true that there are many books of English literature translated and even some of them from French and Russian language. I can see it easily in some Beijing bookstores.

My question is about some classic literatures that are very difficult to find, most of all from the Latin tradition (literature of Spain, Latin-America, Italy, Portugal...). For example as a Chinese do you know or have you read some book of Petrarca, Dante, Cervantes, Camoes, Garcia Lorca, Pessoa, Borges....?

As I have expressed before my impression in that there are a important lack of a big part of the Western literature in Chinese - apart from English, French and Russian. If I'm wrong please let me know.

On the other hand I think that too many educated people in China think that the biggest literature tradition in Western culture is in English and French. Is this a false impression? what do you think?

[龙杰]

I'd also like to know the influence of other Asian literatures in the Chinese scene. Could anyone mention famous writters in China from different Asian countries as Japan, Corea, Vietnam, Thailand, India, etc?

I'm trying to discover what remains apart from English literature and some French and Russian novels in the publishing world of China.

[wushijiao]

I have never studied this formally...but I think- Mark Twain, Gogol, Balzac, Dickens, Charlotte Bronte are some of the big Western influences.

These days, my girlfriend tells me that every Chinese yuppie has to read Milan Kundera, whether they like him or not.

My girlfiend has read Gabrieal Garcia Marquez. But I have met no one who has read Octavio Paz, Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortazar, Juan Rulfo, Isabel Allende, Neruda or any of the other "big" Latin American or "boom" authors.

I think Chinese people read classic Chinese literature and then read some world classics, which tend to come from France, Russia, England and the US. It seems to me, that there isn't a whole lot of exploration into non-classic, or literature from (materially) underdeveloped places. I'm guessing on that, please correct me otherwise.

Of course, maybe I just don't know how to say those in Chinese, or they don't know the Western names.

[wushijiao]

Another thing that might be a factor in this is the role of public domain. It's cheap to translate and publish a book that is already free, dui bu dui? The bad thing about that is the literary canon is already solidified around a few big names, while other new and exciting stuff, and old and forgotten (but still good) works, might be left to die.

[龙杰]

Dear wushijiao,

I'm not agree with you, sorry. I'm from Spain and I know a lot of educated people from my country and from other European and American countries that never had read a book of Mark Twain, the Brontë's sisters or Gogol, although I accept that they are part of the classics of the world literature. But in any case, they are not the most important, absolutely not. You have mentioned some names of the Latin-American literary boom of the second half of the 20th century (García Márquez, Isabel Allende, etc), but I don't consider them as a consecrate classics. You could think in the writters that I mentioned in my previous posts: those are "classics". This is not a subjective idea, you can check it in any treatise of Western Literature.

I know that Chinese literature have its own big tradition and that maybe the Chinese readers don't feel the need to approach to the Western tradition. But please don't get confused between classics and what you can find in a Chinese bookstore . I just feel a little disappointed because I think that in Europe we are beggining to learn more accuratelly the literature of Eastern Asia and here I find that the Chinese people are taking a bad example from some particular kind of publications.

[wushijiao]

I think what makes a classic is fairly arbitrary, and always has a lot to do with various social, political factors. Some books or authors aren't considered "classics" until much later. Don Quixote being an example of a book that was finally seen as serious by the Europeans in the 18th century and the post-modernists in the 20th. Also, for example, in Latin America, based on my experience, Faulkner is considered the greatest American author, mainly because he influenced a whole huge list of people. Of course, he is a great author, yet, the process of why some writers become famous in other countries, while others don't, is somewhat strange and curious.

For example, I read an interview with some Chinese author surnamed Zhou (forgot name). He mentioned that many people in urban China are living in grim conditions somewhat similar to those in Dickens novels. Thus, it's not suprising Chinese still read Dickens, as opposed to Henry James, who analysed the American character in the late 19th Century, a rather boring, un-universal subject.

I'm not agree with you, sorry. I'm from Spain and I know a lot of educated people from my country and from other European and American countries that never had read a book of Mark Twain, the Brontë's sisters or Gogol, although I accept that they are part of the classics of the world literature. But in any case, they are not the most important, absolutely not.

I didn't mean to say that these were "important", just that they have influenced a lot of other writers. Tolostoy - Lu Xun, almost every school child has read a bit Bronte Sister (while I never have), Gogol has influenced Ha Jin, Twain on the Baihua movement. If you read Lin Yu Tang's "My Country, My People" he talks about this trend in Shanghai in the '20's, when a lot of important modern Chinese lit. was being produced.

I find that as far as Spain, there is very little contact indeed. One reason is that China and Spain both admit that cultural exchanges have historically been very limited, which is regretable. In China's foreign relations (and thus worldview) the US, Asia, and former Communist countries were the main concern. Next came solidarity with Africa and the Middle East, while Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Nordic countries got less attention, I think.

I think that in Europe we are beggining to learn more accuratelly the literature of Eastern Asia

Well, in the US, we don't learn almost anything about East Asia, let alone accuratelly (at least before college). Be glad you live in Europe!

[Vera]

I know that Chinese literature have its own big tradition and that maybe the Chinese readers don't feel the need to approach to the Western tradition..

I don't agree with you on this. Maybe it has something to do with the personality of the cultures. You know American/English culture is very aggressive, and they seize every chance to propagate their culture and their ideas and even provide financial aid to those who help them to do the job.

BTW:Isabel Allende has always been my favorite. Although according to you her books are not so classic, hers are the only ones available in my case. I am trying to translate her Portrait in Sepia (from English) into Chinese for fun with no hope of publishing.

Click here to view my translation.