Wen Jieruo: Mo's Nobel shows importance of translation
As China's Nobel literature winner Mo Yan just went to Stockholm to pick up his award, one legendary Chinese translator spoke of how his winning proves the importance of translation in Beijing on Wednesday.
"How could Mo Yan win? Aside from his own great writing, the translators played a great role in this," said Wen Jieruo, the 85-year-old veteran translator, "When the translation came out, people loved it, and more came out. Once the world got to know more about Mo's works, the Nobel eventually had to recognize him as well. Mo Yan's main translators include Howard Goldblatt for the English editions and Anna Gustafsson Chen for the Swedish ones. When talking about Mo's winning, Wen Jieruo felt sorry for her close friend Ba Jin, who is considered to be one of the most important and widely read Chinese writers of the 20th century. "He wrote 'A Garden of Repose' and 'Cold Night' before 1949, both of which were translated into French. If he had had the opportunity to write more, he too could have won a Nobel Prize. After 1949, he was no longer able to write anything due to the political environment," Wen said. Before her exclusive interview with China.org.cn, Wen had just finished writing an article entitled "Read books every day, enjoyment never ends." In the piece, Wen cited some criticism from newspaper Wenhui Daily against Mo which read how some of the Nobel laureate's later works show "craziness and violence of language and cynicism in spirits, which are furious but lack depth." "The fact that Mo Yan won the award doesn't mean you have to praise him as the Almighty Lord, no, they merely pointed out his shortcomings," Wen said, "I met Mo Yan twice, I felt that he is a very humble man. Both times I met him, Kenzaburo Oe （大江健三郎）was there as well - an admirer of Mo's. But Kenzaburo Oe doesn't like Haruki Murakami （村上春树）." Haruki Murakami, a major writer once deemed the strongest contender for this year's Nobel besides Mo, also hasn't won over Wen. "I think the Nobel committee made the right choice," Wen said, "I once read Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood," and my only comment is it can be summarized as 'eat, drink and have sex,' I heard this book sells 400,000 copies and young people love it. This is just too bad; I think we should give students some guidance. I read it in one day, 10 hours, and was done with it." Wen herself has rendered a great number of Japanese literary works into Chinese in almost five decades, including 14 novels, 18 novellas as well as over 100 novelettes. Such outstanding Japanese writers as Yasushi Inoue （井上靖）, Yasunari Kawabata（川端康成）, Tsutomu Mizukami （水上勉）and Yukio Mishima（三岛由纪夫） became popular in China due to Wen's translation. The old lady has a long list of works to her credit, including "Saint of Mt. Koya" (included in the book series Selected Novels of Kyoka Izumi泉鏡花), "Selected Novels of Ryunosuke Akutagawa （芥川龙之介）," and "Ulysses" by James Joyce, a masterpiece translated by Wen and her husband Xiao Qian（萧乾）, another huge Chinese writer and translator. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation at the Second National Translation Conference in Beijing on Dec. 6, 2012. Coming back to Mo Yan then, Wen simply hopes history will not repeat itself in terms of the tragedy that struck Yasunari Kawabata（川端康成）. The Japanese author simply could not bear the media frenzy that ensues his winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 and in 1972 he decided to take his own life. "I hope the Chinese media don't bother Mo and let him continue writing. I believe he will also humbly accept his older fellows' suggestions for his own creations."
文洁若，萧乾先生的夫人，贵州贵阳人，1927年生于北京，1950年毕业于清华大学外国语文学系英语专业。曾任职于三联书店，1979年加入中国作家协会。历任人民文学出版社整理科编辑、编审，苏联东欧组编辑，外文部亚洲组日本文学翻译，《日本文学》丛书(19卷)主编，日本文学研究会理事，中国翻译协会会员。 1985-1986年为日本国际交流基金会访问学者和东京东洋大学客座研究员，赴日研究日本近代与现代文学。1980年代，多次赴英、美、德、挪威、新加坡、马来西亚及中国香港等地，从事文学交流活动。2002年，被推选为世界华文文学家协会名誉理事。2004年，被评为资深翻译家。2012年12月6日，被中国翻译协会授予“翻译文化终身成就奖”荣誉称号。 主要成就: 萧乾先生在世时，文洁若总是被先生的光环“罩住”，其实她也是一位成绩卓著的学者，是中国个人翻译日文作品字数最多的翻译家。据统计，在长达半个多世纪的时间里，她先后翻译了十四部长篇小说，十八部中篇小说，一百多篇短篇小说，共计八百余万字。日本的井上靖、川端康成、水上勉、三岛由纪夫等人的作品都是经她的翻译介绍给中国读者的。 |
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