Thomas Bird: You translated Chi Zijian’s The Last Quarter of the Moon in 2012. It has now been rebranded and newly launched as part of the Vintage Earth series. How do you feel about it 10 years on? Bruce Humes: I feel the book is more relevant than ever. On the one hand, it highlights the challenges that face … Continue reading Q & A with Bruce Humes, Translator of Eco-fiction Novel “Last Quarter of the Moon”
Podcaster Angus Stewart interviews Bruce Humes about translating Chi Zijian’s Last Quarter of the Moon Arrival of the Han & their lumberjacks * Female Shamans * Magical realism * Gu Tao’s documentaries * Irony of CCP-driven collectivization * Various titles of the novel in translation Chimamanda Adichie is leading the rise of an African literature wave in China (Quartz China) African fiction in Chinese translation * Popularity … Continue reading Interviews with Chinese-to-English Literary Translator Bruce Humes
专访｜土耳其作家伊切：伊斯坦布尔是帝国，安卡拉是共和国 Nov 5 2017 Update: Women Who Blow on Knots Wins 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival Prize 11.15 更新：《吹开绳结的女人》获爱丁堡国际图书节处女作奖 In a welcome move to break the near-monopoly of fiction sourced from a familiar pool of American, European and Japanese writers, a batch of new Turkish works will be appearing in bookstores throughout China in 2017. And … Continue reading Ece Temelkuran: Novels by Provocative Turkish Writer Coming Soon to China
In Meet China’s Salman Rushdie, Foreign Policy’s Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian profiles Xinjiang's controversial Uyghur writer Perhat Tursun (پەرھات تۇرسۇن, 帕尔哈提·吐尔逊): Perhat is the author of The Art of Suicide [自杀的艺术], a novel decried as anti-Islamic that in 1999 set off a religious firestorm among Uighurs, the largely Muslim, Turkic minority concentrated in the nominally autonomous Chinese … Continue reading Profile: Xinjiang-based Uyghur Writer Perhat Tursun
伦敦出版商 Harvill Secker 一月 17 日推出了东北作家迟子建的第一本译成英文的小说，《Last Quarter of the Moon》。为了《中华读书报》，慷慨先生找到我，进行了有关我翻译这本小说的采访： 《读书报》：为什么使用现在这个英译书名，而不是原书名《额尔古纳河右岸》的直译？ 徐穆实 [Bruce Humes]：首先要明白一个事实：书名一般由出版方来定，译者甚至原作家的想法只是建议罢了。要知道，外文版权是外国出版社拥有的，当然是他们说了算。 我的建议本来是直译：The Right Bank of the Argun。这书名不仅忠实原作，也方便引起西方读者的好奇心。因为用“右岸”表达河流的方位有点莫名其妙，西方读者习惯用东南西北来表达。就算西方读者 不知道这条河是几百年以来中俄边境的界线，单凭这种奇特的表达方式，也会引起他们的好奇心。 但英格兰的出版人被早些出版的《额尔古纳河右岸》意大利译文的书名 Ultimo quarto di luna 所吸引，就把它译成英文的 The Last Quarter of the Moon。 全文可以在此下载 PDF 版。
Here’s my interview with Cindy Carter, Chinese-to-English translator of Dream of Ding Village: Bruce Humes: You studied Japanese and lived in Japan for several years before moving to Beijing. Has your knowledge of Japanese, the people and/or the language been useful to you in mastering Chinese? What made you willing to leave Japan to pursue … Continue reading The Transparent Translator: Cindy Carter on “Dream of Ding Village”
As those knowledgeable about Chinese literature in translation may have noted, one occasionally finds European publishers---particularly in France---are willing to translate and publish Chinese fiction long before these "unknown" authors are "discovered" by the English-speaking world. Ethnic ChinaLit spoke recently with Stéphane Lévêque, who is busy translating Harmonious Land (水乳大地) into French, the first novel [May … Continue reading Translator interview: Stéphane Lévêque, Chinese-to-French translator of Fan Wen’s “Harmonious Land”
Fan Wen (范稳), the Chinese Catholic author who recently completed his fictional trilogy spotlighting cultural and religious collisions in the "multicultural wonderland" of the Yunnan-Tibet border, now has another historical novel in mind. The first book in the published series, Harmonious Land (水乳大地), recounts the tale of a multi-ethnic settlement in Lancangjiang Canyon (gateway to … Continue reading Fan Wen: New Novel to Explore Culture Clash behind Kunming-Haiphong
The China Daily features a piece on the third and final novel in a trilogy exploring the border on either side of Yunnan and Tibet: At last author Fan Wen (范稳) has his reward for a decade of immersion in the multicultural wonderland along the Yunnan-Tibet border: Canticle to the Land (大地雅歌), the closing novel … Continue reading Fan Wen’s Yunnan-Tibetan Trilogy: A Catholic Chinese Author’s Imagination Takes Flight
Murong Xuecun has gained a name for himself through his unflattering vignettes of gambling, drinking, whoring and corruption in contemporary China. His best-seller, Leave me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu (成都，今夜请将我遗忘), prompted the authorities to convene a conference solely to critique the novel for sullying the Sichuan city’s image. But in a change of tack … Continue reading Interview: Author Murong Xuecun (慕容雪村) on his Undercover Role Investigating a Chinese Pyramid Scheme
Bruce Humes 