The Overseas Communication of Contemporary Chinese Literature: Translation and P

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Mo Yan is lucky. When Howard Goldblatt, an American sinologist and translator, came to China in 1988, he took a fancy to Mo Yan's full-length novel named The Garlic Ballads, and then he started the translation of his works. Howard Goldblatt translated all Mo Yan’s 7 novels that have been introduced into the English-speaking world. He is a leading translator of the English-speaking world.

"The translation promotion by translator and publisher is very important to Mo Yan’s entrance into the visual field of the Western, particularly European and American, mainstream culture." Cheng Yongxin, editor-in-chief of the literary magazine named Harvest, said, "(Winning) is an issue of opportunity. Some Chinese writers, including Shen Congwen, missed the Nobel Prize in Literature in the past, because translation is a crucial factor. Western readers, including Nobel Prize judges, can only read translated texts in French or English, etc. and many other languages are translated from English."

According to the exchange experiences with overseas sinologists, Cheng Yongxin believes outside misunderstanding of many Chinese writers often results from translation.

Translation and Promotion is of Great Importance

Translation is the necessary threshold for Chinese writers to access the international perspective.

"In the circle of Chinese contemporary main writers, Mo Yan is the novelist with the most works being translated and introduced to foreign countries. Followed by Yu Hua, Su Tong, and then Jia Pingwa, Wang Anyi", said Liu Jiangkai, director of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Overseas communication Research Institute of Zhejiang Normal University.

Liu Jiangkai said that in the view of domestic researchers, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Jia Pingwa, Wang Anyi, and Wang Meng are all belonged to the "first army" of contemporary chinese writers. "There is just a tiny difference considering their strength of creation", but the actual overseas communication effect of their works is of great difference.

"The writer's creation style will greatly influence the translation and dissemination of their works. For example, Qinqiang (Shanxi Opera), written by Jia Pingwa, will lose a lot of its ethnic and vernacular language features and just leave a pile of trifle language after translation. It is also difficult to translate Song of Everlasting Sorrow, written by Wang Anyi. Relatively speaking, translation of works of Mo Yan and Yu Hua is not easy to lose their features", said Liu Jiangkai.

In addition to Mo Yan, Yu Hua is a Chinese writer being relatively popular overseas. Liu Jiangkai notes that Brothers, a novel of Yu Hua, receives more criticism than praise from home, but more praise than criticism from abroad after publishing - "few negative evaluations". Almost all the major media have extensively introduced this book after the publishing of Brothers in the United States

Overseas promotion implemented by publisher of Mo Yan’s works seems to be better than others. "According to my understanding, Mo Yan has traveled many places in the United States, and held a number of activities such as "Meeting your readers" to contact with ordinary readers. While the major places that Yu Hua has visited in the United States are universities. Most of the readers attracted by university activities are young people and Chinese people, but they cannot make up the direct purchasing power and influence. Most of readers are middle-aged and elderly population in western countries.

In addition, Liu Jiangkai also discovers an intriguing phenomenon: Su Tong, Mo Yan, Yu Hua, as the top three writers with their works being translated and introduced overseas, have one thing in common, that is their works having been adapted into movies by Zhang Yimou and obtaining international film awards, for example, Red Sorghum, adapted from Mo Yan's novel of the same name, won the Golden Bear Award at the Thirty-eighth Session of West Berlin Film Festival; Raise the Red Lantern, adapted from Su Tong's novel Wives and Concubines in Flocks, has successively won the Silver Lion Award at the Forty-eighth Venice International Film Festival, Golden Gregory Modeling Special Prize, International Film Critics Award and the British Academy of Film and Television Art Award for Best Foreign Language Film, New York Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Belgium Film Critics Association Award; Ge You, chief actor of To Live, adapted from Yu Hua's novel of the same name, has won the "Award for Best Actor at the Forty-seventh Cannes International Film Festival."

"A 'Best Contribution Award for the overseas communication of Chinese Contemporary literature' shall be awarded to Zhang Yimou", joked Liu Jiangkai.

But after all, film can only have an effect of temporary condensation to literature. It depends on the literary value of the works itself to obtain continuous attention and affirmation.

"Mo Yan’s appearance and maturity is closely related to the China of 1980s, i.e. after the reform and opening up, which shows that China has come to a literature glorious era, an era created by a group of writers." "Although few of them can enter the mainstream cultural perspective of Western countries", put Cheng Yongxin.

Accidental Discovery

While doing a data statistics, Liu Jiangkai accidentally discovered that translations of Wei Hui are much more than other contemporary mainstream writers. What even more surprising is that the main translated works of Wei Hui is only the Shanghai Baby.

"There should be two reasons: firstly, Shanghai Baby was banned from publishing in China, and thus attract the curiosities of foreigners; secondly, the book has excessive description of sex. Therefore, it can be inferred that the pop elements have great impact on world book market, and the translation quantity can not represent the artistic value of works."

Another accidental discovery of Liu Jiangkai is that: the quantity of Vietnamese translation of many works of contemporary writers is more than that of English translation. Among the twelve Chinese contemporary writers studied by Liu Jiangkai, all their major works have Vietnamese translation. Writers like Yu Hua and Mo Yan had formed an upsurge in Vietnam reading circle.

But this important phenomenon has been neglected by the majority of media and researchers.

"Because we pay more attention to dominant culture from Europe and the United States in our cultural exchanges", said Liu Jiangkai, "We have been seeking for the identification from the dominant culture of developed countries such as Europe and the United States for the past 100 years, therefore, we have a national unconscious anxiety to winning no Nobel Prize before. One benefit for Mo Yan’s award-winning is that it is an opportunity for us to adjust our attitude. The excessive display of domestic media and the national excitement indicates that we are not really confident. We will not pay much attention to the prize awarded by foreigners if we are strong enough."

Chinese Literature is Still at the Edge of the World

"Don't be puzzled by the Nobel Prize, works of Chinese contemporary writers is still in a state of serious 'adverse trade balance' in the exchanges with foreign countries – less than ten books have been translated and introduced annually, while much more are imported. Chinese literature is still at the edge of global cultural, so marginal for some people to accept", said Liu Jiangkai.

Liu Jiangkai has noticed that few translation of Chinese contemporary literature, which can be seen in the bookstores of Bonn, when he studied in Bonn of Germany a few years ago.

"Translations of foreign literature can be seen in all domestic bookstores, even those small ones, but few bookstores in countries such as Britain, France and the United States have complete columns about Chinese literature. A little shelf of Chinese literary books once appeared in a bookstore in France during the book fair in Frankfurt, but it was withdrawn after the book fair", said Liu Jiangkai.

"My friends engaging in domestic publishing have expressed that they are more willing to translate foreign works in comparison with original works of domestic writers, because Chinese readers are more in favor of foreign literary works, and seldom suffer a loss from publishing those translated works", said Ye Kai.

"I’ve heard from my friends that My Name is Red, a novel of Turkey writer Orhan Pamuk introduced in 2006, has been sold for 400 thousand copies so far, even though I personally don’t think the translation is flexible. But Frogs of Mo Yan has only been printed for 200 thousand copies before winning the prize. It is difficult for other domestic first-class writers, apart from those writers of best-selling books, to sell 100 thousand copies. Therefore, the current Chinese literature is still weak, and is actually still in a very narrow circle even if translated abroad and can not be truly popular among foreign general readers. The western readers are too arrogant to be interested in your culture. It is the fact impossible to hide. We have the opportunity to catch up and surpass only after we admit it", said Ye Kai.

In view of this, Liu Jiangkai advocates to establish the literary agencies for the promotion of Chinese literature abroad.

"Writers such as Yu Hua and Mo Yan have mature overseas promotion and agency mechanism. Creation of course is the fundamental factor, but there is a full set of mechanism in the circulating link, involving the publicity of translators, brokers, overseas publishers, and including the negotiation of copyright royalty, the promotion of overseas Sinologists, and so on. Translation is recognized to be the bottleneck for the globalization of Chinese literature, and the bigger bottleneck is the lack of mechanism of overseas agency. We should refer to the way for Japan promoting Yasunari Kawabata?", said Liu Jiangkai.