Interview by Wan Shuyuan 2022

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Links to other interviews as background information: 2021_Interview_with_Duan_Yuanyuan, Longer_interview_version_dated_March_3_2021, Interview_Univerlag_2022.

Aim: Give guidance for the field, make some provocative but true statements. Reflect current discussions both in China and internationally. Refer to Web literature work by Chen Dingjia (CASS) and to "Intellectual History" by Chen Zhongyi.

汉学家吴漠汀：我为何翻译中国现当代文学?

近年来,随着中国作家屡在国际获奖，越来越多中国现当代作家的作品开始受到世界关注。德国汉学家吴漠汀翻译了鲁迅、许地山、郁达夫、朱自清、冰心、巴金、钱钟书、王蒙、张洁、刘再复、贾平凹、余秋雨、韩少功、许泽晨、张伟、韩寒、绵绵等一大批中国作家的众多作品。

中新社记者拟以“我为何翻译中国现当代文学?”为题，采访德国汉学家吴漠汀教授。

采访问题如下：

1. 你不仅翻译了《红楼梦》德文版本，还先后翻译了鲁迅、许地山、郁达夫、朱自清、冰心、巴金、钱钟书、王蒙、张洁、刘再复、贾平凹、余秋雨、韩少功、许泽晨、张伟、韩寒、绵绵等一大批中国近现代作家的作品。你为何钟情于中国近现代文学？

The main reason is, that from the perspective of world literature, Chinese literature had a good quality until around 1930, when the League of Left Wing Writers was founded and politics became more important than literature. Since then, Chinese literature has never recovered to its high quality of Tang Dynasty and Republican times, because Chinese authors cannot write totally free. But even under these hard environment, we still have a few works of excellent Chinese literature today. These works are worth to be translated and to made known to the world.

This is the more the case, since we have many more e.g. English, French, Spanish and German literature translated into Chinese than the other way round. One of the reasons why not much Chinese literature is translated into foreign languages is that China as a country ranks among the countries with the lowest popularity all around the world. A major reason for that is her corruption and autocratic system. If China can reform and open up more, also its culture will naturally become more popular all around the world.

Jia Pingwa has been translated far less than he earns it, because with his local flavor and many local traditions and dialect, he is difficult to translate.

In general, to support cultural attractiveness, the so-called "soft power" with "hard power" means, e.g. financial support, can backfire. The United States was long seen as a country where poor or criminal European immigrated to. It was a country of slavery and its racism was severe even until the 1970s. Since then, the United States have reformed and earned the trust of many other countries in the world. So without investing into soft power, it naturally became a soft superpower. People all over the world eat the unhealthy American fast food, simply because the United States has an attractiveness and people feel to be part of the "land of the free" or the "American dream" when they eat the food.

The Chinese government supports the export of Chinese culture financially especially since 2007. It also supports the translation of Chinese literature and propaganda books into foreign languages. In the beginning, the policy was not applied properly. The most funding was offered for propaganda books, and not from the perspective which works of literature and which fact books can be successful abroad. This practise has become better now. However, the sales figures of Chinese books abroad are still lowered because the partnering Chinese publishing houses make the final edit of the translations and have the final say how to design the covers. They often change the colors, take away the illustrations and eye-catching cover texts. So even if the works of literature have a huge potential to succeed around the world, ruling into how the books should look like or be presented abroad destroys a lot of the potential.

2. 中国近现代文学的魅力何在？翻译近现代文学如何加深了你对中国的了解？

Modern and contemporary literature is one of the best ways to understand a country and a culture. Authors have the ability to drag readers into their thoughts, to let them participate in their line of thoughts and let them look at China through Chinese eyes.

Examples!

3. 很多文学作品在跨文化的翻译过程中，会让作品失去原本的魅力。那么，你在翻译中国近现代文学作品时，是如何克服翻译瓶颈的？和翻译中国古典文学有何不同之处？

It is not true, that works of literature lose their original attraction when translated into a different language. That is a prejudice. Almost all literature we read today is translated literature. If you do not translate, you only have national literatures read by local people. If you want to win the nobel prize of literature, you need to be translated at least into English, and best also into Swedish.

Every original has its specific attraction. It can be low or high. If it may be of high attraction to foreign readers - which is not always the same as to be attractive to local readers - then it is worth to be translated. When you translate, you can either make it more attractive or less attractive. This depends on a lot of factors. One is, that you need to understand and appreciate the original fully. Many Chinese readers also cannot understand and appreciate a work fully. So the ideal translator is a foreigner, who has lived in China for several years. There are almost only native speakers of the target language, who produce successful translations in the literary field. The same is true for foreign literature: If it wants to be successful in the Chinese literary market, it needs to be translated by a Chinese translator. An even more ideal translator would be an author by her or himself. So the best poetry translation is done by poets who translated into their own language.

In the education process of translators, they are told that they should master the foreign language as well as their own language. But this is not possible except for people who grew up truly bilingual. Therefore, one should translate into one's own language in order to achieve the best success.

4. 过去很长一段时期，西方对中国古典文学研究较多，而对现当代文学的翻译和研究较少。曾有外国翻译家直言：“中国当代文学在西方的处境如同沙漠。”这一现象背后的原因是什么？

Of course the world is a desert, when it comes to Chinese literature. And this is unfair, because there are actually works of literature with a high quality in China.

Therefore, I made it a task to translate more Chinese works of literature into my own language, German. I gathered a group of young sinologists in Germany, who all joined into a translators workshop. In this workshop, we now translate about 10 books from Chinese into German, most of it works of literature. With this output, we have doubled the number of books translated from Chinese into German since more than a decade now.

The reason behind the desert phenomenon is, that Chinese literature is only as popular as the country is seen by the international community. The worldwide market for Russian literature broke down since end of February 2022, and at the same time the worldwide market for Ukrainian literature has skyrocketed. Since there was no change in quality, we can see from that that there are foreign perceptions and the image of a country, which plays into it. The easiest way for Chinese literature to become celebrated around the world would be to become a country, which is even more clean and even more free than today.

受访者简介：

吴漠汀(Martin Woesler)，男，生于1969年，德国著名汉学家、欧洲科学院院士、欧盟让•莫内讲席教授，德国维藤大学研究院、曾任德国慕尼黑应用语言大学中文系主任、罗马第三大学讲席教授、美国由他谷大学副教授。2019年9月受聘湖南师范大学潇湘学者特聘教授。主要研究领域为《红楼梦》、比较文学、翻译、跨文化交流、中国现当代文学。他通晓德语、汉语、英语，先后翻译鲁迅、许地山、郁达夫、朱自清、冰心、巴金、钱钟书、王蒙、张洁、刘再复、贾平凹、余秋雨、韩少功、许泽晨、张伟、韩寒、绵绵等一大批中国作家的作品。他同史华慈（Rainer Schwarz)先生共同翻译完成的《红楼梦》,是《红楼梦》首部完整德文译本。荣获2020年度中国政府友谊奖。

参考资料

https://www.sohu.com/a/442142_106055

外国翻译家：中国当代文学在西方的处境如同沙漠 2014-10-30 12:13

在昨天举行的一场“汉学与当代中国”座谈会上，面对采访的几位国外翻译家表示对中国当代文学作品在国外的翻译出版很不乐观，他们毫不留情地用“太差了”、“沙漠”、“怪怪的”等来形容中国当代文学在西方的处境，令记者感到意外。

怎么了

俄罗斯曾经三年没出版一本中国当代文学书籍

俄罗斯圣彼得堡国立大学东方系常务副主任罗季奥诺夫很形象的控诉中国当代文学在俄罗斯的“惨状”：“与政治经济的热相比，中国文学在俄罗斯不能说是冷的，但至少是凉的。”罗季奥诺夫介绍，“翻译逆差明显，达到了20倍，俄罗斯的80后和90后根本就不知道当代中国文学是什么，他们只了解西方文学。”

据他统计，1990年到2005年这15年间，中国当代文学在俄罗斯一共只出版了8本书，平均两年一本，“简直是沙漠”，2005年到2008年因为有合作项目，出版了几本书，2008年金融危机后到2010年的3年间，一本书也没有，2011年出版了1本，才卖出去1000册，2012年好一点，出版了2本，一共卖出去8300册。

加拿大西门菲莎大学教授、汉学家Jan Walls痴迷中国文化，不但给自己起了个地道的中文名字王健，还会表演数来宝。“我注意到，2013年我们的作家门罗得了诺贝尔文学奖后，中国的出版社出版了9本她的小说，而2012年莫言得了诺奖后，却没有同等的待遇，加拿大并没有因为莫言得奖就多出版他的书。”王健说，加拿大的汉学家和翻译家不少，但有个共同的“毛病”，就是重视中国古典文学，轻视中国当代文学，包括他自己，作为叶嘉莹的学生，也更喜欢翻译古诗词。

西班牙马德里自治大学东亚研究中心主任、翻译家达西安娜·菲萨克，在上世纪80年代就翻译了大量的巴金、钱钟书等名家的作品到西班牙。她也直言中国当代文学在西班牙的境况不乐观。

为什么

中国当代作品的翻译连资深汉学家都发憷

对于中国当代文学作品不被国外接受的另外一个原因，是跨文化的翻译过程让作品失去了其魅力。土耳其安卡拉大学中文系主任欧凯带着几个中文流利的博士生来中国交流，他指了指自己的学生，“土耳其目前中国文学的大部分译者都是我的学生，我不应该这样直接批评我的学生，但我必须要说，翻译得太差了，很多错误。”

欧凯的手机里面存着许多张图书的图片，每一张里都有用红色笔圈出来的字句。欧凯向《北京晚报》记者展示这些他随时翻看的翻译作品，其中有铁凝的《永远有多远》，欧凯很喜欢铁凝的文字，“可是你看，这本书的名字就翻译错了，还有王刚的作品《英格力士》，书名直接翻译成《英语》了，这怎么能一样呢。”欧凯又翻到一本莫言的作品，其中的“八路”翻译成了“第八大道”：“他们不了解中国文化，不了解创作背后的含义，如果我是普通读者，到书店里拿起这样一本书翻一下，根本不会去买。”

这种翻译的困难有时也并不只是年轻的译者中文水平有限所致，而是中西文化差异过大。菲萨克告诉记者，尽管已经有三十年的翻译经验，但是在翻译当代作品时还是发憷：“翻译当代的文学作品有些困难，大部分都是通过英文和法文的译本再翻译成西班牙文。”这样就造成了二次转述中和原文更大的误差。她还提到，中国曾经组织了一批西班牙语好的外语人才，将中国作品翻译到西班牙。“我不认为这种做法可行，因为我看了书以后，觉得语言都是怪怪的，读者看过之后可能更觉得中国是个距离遥远的文化了。”

怎么办

这事儿需要政府牵引 靠个人力量肯定不行

欧凯的建议很直接，希望土耳其政府和中国政府共同为翻译作品的质量把关。“政府必须介入，之前的翻译都是很个人的事情，喜欢哪本书，跟出版社说，就开始翻译，根本无法保证翻译的质量。”欧凯认为，可以成立一个委员会，监督和审查翻译的质量，为作品严格把关，“这件事情肯定要政府去做，靠个人的力量是不行的。”

罗季奥诺夫则提出了具体的建议，希望俄罗斯的孔子学院和中国作家协会合作推出翻译项目，“不但要翻译，更要推广，不是把书出版就行了，还要大力推广，比如莫言和余华这样一批有名气的中国作家，完全可以走商业宣传的方式。”罗季奥诺夫也敏感地提出，在翻译作品时要特别注意本土读者的接受程度：“我发现很多在中国特别受欢迎的作品，俄罗斯人很不喜欢，甚至还会反感，引起对于中国人的误解，挑选什么样的文学作品很关键。”

菲萨克一直以来担心的西班牙“缺少真正懂中文的人”的人才不足问题，随着2008年西班牙大学开始招收本科汉语专业的学生有了很大改变，可以寄希望于后辈：“目前已经培养了一批年轻的汉学家，真正在搞翻译，真正因为喜欢中国文学才会做这件事。”

同样为人才担心的加拿大学者王健也说，别看加拿大面积大，但是人口还不及云南省的人口，翻译人才就更少了。“现在有一个现象，是中国移民到加拿大，在大学继续学习中国文学的学者们，有这样一批中青年学者在从事翻译工作，都是自发的。”王健说。 本报记者陈梦溪返回搜狐，查看更多