Beijing Bookworm International Literary Festival – Howard Goldblatt and Wolf Totem

Tonight at the Bookworm, prolific Chinese to English translator Howard Goldblatt sits down with the tall writer/translator (and former that's Beijing editor - who also happens to be working with the Immersion Guides team on a new project called Beijing by Foot) Eric Abrahamsen to talk about contemporary Chinese fiction as part of Beijing Bookworm's International Literary Festival. Tickets to this great event sold out long ago, but the Bookworm assures us that audio of the session will be available soon. Later in the evening, Goldblatt will help to launch the English translation of Wolf Totem by Chinese author Jiang Rong. Both speakers know the book well as Goldblatt translated it into English and Abrahamsen wrote a profile of the author on the Paper Republic website.

We interviewed both the author and also the translator for the March issue of that's Beijing (click here to read the interviews) and we reviewed Wolf Totem here. Below we offer you the un-cut, directors edit, extended version of Michaela Kabat's interview with Goldblatt.

Extended Interview:

tbjblog: : Your journey into the Chinese language and field of translation was a bit unusual. Can you describe the process?

HG: Unlike most of my peers, I had no academic training in Chinese. My “journey” began when I was sent to Taiwan by the US Navy during the Vietnam era. I began studying Chinese on my own and somehow managed to get good enough at it to enroll in an advanced language course at Taiwan Normal University when my military obligations ended in the late 60s. Back in the US, I decided to parlay my still underdeveloped fluency into graduate degrees. Like the blind cat that “catches” a dead mouse, as the Chinese saying goes, I kept stumbling into good opportunities and falling under the tutelage of great teachers. After happily “discovering” the Northeastern Chinese novelist Xiao Hong, on whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation, I got a teaching job and a couple of requests to translate some short Taiwanese stories for a literary quarterly. It was like coming home.

tbjblog: Do you do any writing other than translating? Do you feel that people need to be good/creative writers to be effective translators?

HG: I’ve written some very, very short stories, my sole contribution to “English” literature. I’ve done better in Chinese. I’ve published a couple of volumes of prose, including a series of essays and I once wrote a column for the Taiwan Zhongguo shibao (China Times). I’m currently working on a novel that, when (if?) successfully completed, will comprise the third volume of a trilogy, the first two of which were written by Xiao Hong, who died before she could finish her project; I have translated, but not published, those two volumes.

A translator needs to be able to write well, but need not be a creative writer, someone who must have ideas, a voice, even an agenda. It’s a translator’s job to convey those in the best and most appropriate (in this case) English possible. There is a school of thought that only a poet should translate poetry. In my view, that’s exactly wrong. Only a translator should translate poetry; the temptations for a poet to write good poetry when translating are simply too great. Take a look at Pound’s Chinese poems, and if you know Chinese, check them out.

tbjblog: Do you have a specific genre (or even author) that you prefer to translate, or that you feel you have a particular talent for translating?

HG: While I’ve translated nonfiction, a poem or two, and a little bit of classical Chinese, I see myself only as a translator of modern and contemporary fiction. I’ve translated most of Xiao Hong’s oeuvre, and am particularly pleased with her Tales of Hulan River, among the finest literary works to emerge from Republican China. I’ve also translated six works by Mo Yan, whose robust, rambling, highly imagistic style suits me. His The Republic of Wine is a masterpiece of metafiction. Another writer with whom I feel quite comfortable is Su Tong, whose Rice and My Life as Emperor are first-class works of fiction. My wife and I have collaborated, enjoyably and, I think, successfully, on a number of works by novelists in China (Alai, Bi Feiyu) and Taiwan (Chu Tien-wen and Li Yung-ping).

tbjblog: Could you tell us a bit about your experience translating Wolf Totem - any particular challenges? Did you work closely with the author? Is the English version significantly different from the Chinese version?

HG: I was invited to translate Wolf Totem, which I had not read but had read about. I quickly read the first few chapters and bits and pieces here and there before saying yes. There are writers whose work I enjoy as a reader but do not think I can translate well (I’ve said yes once or twice when I shouldn’t have, with predictable results); while Jiang Rong’s style would take some getting used to, I believed I could handle it. I had no doubts that it was eminently worthy of gaining a readership outside of China. I decided not to read the whole novel before beginning to translate (I’ve done this on other occasions), so as to approach the work with the same sense of wonder a reader will have. This required going back to redo sections, particularly foregroundings in the original, after learning “what happened” later in the novel. It was, I think, the right decision. Jiang Rong, whom I had met many years earlier (when he had begun writing the novel, apparently), generously responded to a series of inquiries I sent him over several months.

The English version is shorter than the Chinese (but still over 500 pages). The publisher decided not to include the long “conversation” at the end, owing in part to considerations of length and in part to the different tone and some repetition. Jiang Rong reluctantly acquiesced and wrote a new page-long ending. The epigrammatic openings to each chapter were similarly excised by the publisher, who worried that they might prove to be a distraction to English readers. The author has expressed a wish that they be reinstated in a paperback edition. We’ll see what Penguin says. As of this writing, pre-publication reviews have been excellent, thanks in no small degree to the superb editor with whom I worked, and we all expect the same from post-publication reviews.

tbjblog: How has the translation field changed since you began translating? How about reception of Chinese literature abroad?

HG: To begin with, there are a lot more active and prospective translators, many of whom live and work in China. For a period of time, a significant number of translations, not all of them published, were undertaken by graduate students spending a year or so in China, where they became acquainted with authors from the cities where they were studying. These were not always happy convergences. The selection process is much improved these days. There are also more US and UK publishers willing to include Chinese translations on their lists, even when they do not do particularly well in terms of sales. The reception in the West has also improved considerably; most importantly, more and more reviewers are accepting Chinese novels on their own terms and not holding them to Western concepts of writing.

tbjblog: What are some of the challenges specific to translating Chinese literature to English?

HG: There are many challenges, some grammatical, some semantic, and some cultural. The two languages are so dissimilar that one frequently has to consider ways to turn what the author wrote into what the author meant. In other words, equivalents of significance, not just of words or phrases. Translating Chinese requires a keener sense of creativity than most languages.

tbjblog: Do you have any suggestions for prospective translators?

HG: 1. Read more literature in your native tongue. 2. Be respectful of, but not intimidated by a text. 3. Go over your translation as if you were a reader coming to it for the first time. 4. Avoid using clichés, even when they appear in the original. 5. Get a native speaker to check your work. 6. Be wary of advice from other translators.

tbjblog: What's your relationship with the city/thoughts on Beijing?

HG: I always look forward to coming to Beijing, in part because I have friends there, and in part because that’s where I first landed in China more than a quarter of a century ago. Mine was the last flight that evening and I barely got out before they turned off the lights and went home. I’ve come back often, but have never lived there. I lived in Harbin for a year and have spent a lot of time in Hong Kong and Taipei. I love literary festivals.

tbjblog: Final words: do you have any upcoming projects, and any thoughts on the future of Chinese literature in translation?

HG: There are plenty of good novelists in China these days, many experienced and passionate translators, and increasing possibilities for publication in the West. I’m happy to say that translating Chinese fiction not only brings me enormous satisfaction but has allowed me to make it my “day job.”

Mar 13
Contemporary Chinese Fiction: Howard Goldblatt

Howard Goldblatt is the pre-eminent translator of contemporary Chinese literature, having translated such literary greats as Mo Yan, Wang Shuo and Chu Tien-wen. RMB 50.
6.30pm. The Bookworm (6586 9507)

Mar 13
Book Launch: Wolf Totem

Winner of the first Man Asian Literary Prize before it was even published in English, Wolf Totem is set to make a big splash in the book world. Free.
8pm. The Bookworm (6586 9507)

Links and Sources
that's Beijing: Literary Festival Roundup
that's Beijing: Master and Commander
that's Beijing: Review of Wolf Totem
Paper Republic Wolf Totem - Profile of Jiang Rong
Full Tilt Literary Journal: Interview with Howard Goldblatt
Beijing by Foot
Paper Republic
See the Beijing Bookworm's website for more festival events and author bios.