Taiwanese Writer 'San Mao'

[Lu]

Digging up this old thread to report that last year, the Spanish and Catalan translations of 撒哈拉的故事 were published. Here is a link, even though I can't read the article. I heard the book was very well received and the translators are currently working on more of Sanmao's books.

 

Jose's grave in La Palma is well-cared-for these days, with a memorial plaque explaining who he and Sanmao were, and a lot of messages left by visitors.

[陳德聰]

Wow that's exciting news. I suspect her stories will continue to be well received in Spanish.

 

Lu, you can actually type a link into google translate's input box and it will attempt to translate the entire webpage. It definitely struggles with Spanish dropped pronouns so there's a lot of referring to Sanmao as "he" and "they" but I think the majority of the article is understandable at least in English

[Lu]

There's an English translation coming up as well, to be published in late 2018 last I heard.

[Luxi]

Since the topic came up again, there are 100s of readings of  San Mao's works in Ximalaya,  mixed up in searches with a children's book character also called 三毛. 

 

I'd like to recommend the readings by an anchor called 半耳聆, I have listened to several chapters of The Sahara Story (撒哈拉的故事) and they're very nicely read: not too fast, not too slow, nice intonation and feeling to the reading, unobtrusive piano background music at low volume, and based on the book text - word by word it seems. It seems to have had more then 2 million followers. A good podcast for learners.

 

http://www.ximalaya.com/55622197/album/8571927

Edited August 25, 2017 at 10:48 AM by Luxi
Forgot to paste the link ;D

[Geiko]

Spain installs the first traffic sign in Chinese to promote a lookout point dedicated to San Mao: News in Spanish

And a photo of the lookout point here (site in Spanish too). 

[laurenth]

As 三毛 was Taiwanese, shouldn't it be 觀景台 instead of 观景台? Hehehe

[Geiko]

In both of the articles I mentioned she's referred to as "the Chinese writer Sanmao"  They consider her to be Chinese, although I doubt they are aware of the China/Taiwan and simplified/traditional characters issues. 

[Lu]

Apparently in China she's considered a Taiwan writer. She was born in China and moved to Taiwan in 1948 when she was five or so. It's my impression that she considered herself Chinese, I don't know if she was aware of the controversy all that much. She has a lot of mainland fans, the sign is not wasted. But they should have picked a different font, the characters 观景 look off.

[陳德聰]

1 hour ago, Lu said:

But they should have picked a different font, the characters 观景 look off.

Yeah looks like they used a Japanese font :/

[Guest realmayo]

An English translation of 撒哈拉的故事  has now been published:

 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/dreaming-of-the-desert-my-life-in-the-sahara-by-sanmao/

 

https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Sahara-Sanmao/dp/140888187X

 

 

[Guest realmayo]

May be of interest:

 

Quote

In this episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, host Angus Stewart talks to Mike Fu about Mike’s translation of Sanmao’s Stories of the Sahara (撒哈拉的故事 Sǎhālā de Gùshì).

 

https://chinachannel.org/2020/11/24/tcf-sanmao/

 

though there's no sound for the first 48 minutes. and in fact, this is from back in Feb.

 

[Dawei3]

Echo Huang, formerly a writer from Quartz, wrote a nice article about why many Chinese women use the English name of Echo:  https://qz.com/963273/the-world-traveling-writer-san-mao-inspired-generations-of-girls-to-adopt-her-nickname-echo/

 

It's often due to the fact that Echo was San Mao's name.  (This said, I think "Echo" must also sound good to Chinese.  I know many Echos and I don't know how many knew of San Mao).

 

 

[Lu]

17 minutes ago, Dawei3 said:

I know many Echos and I don't know how many knew of San Mao

Do ask them if you have a good opportunity, because I suspect the answer will be 'all of them'. Sanmao is hugely famous. I don't think there is anyone in China or Taiwan who reads books who hasn't at least heard of her.

[FlyingSesame]

There are lots of things people can debate about San Mao (三毛) and her works. And I think it is a legitimate question to ask whether everything depicted in her book, say Stories of Sahara, was entirely factual. But nonetheless, Stories of Sahara (撒哈拉的故事) and Crying Camel (哭泣的骆驼) were considered classics for many who grew up in the 80s. It won't be exaggeration to say that these books kindled many Chinese teenagers longing for outside world at the time.