文潔若談文學翻譯的重要性

China.org.cn, December 8, 2012

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 （村上春樹）."

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（三島由紀夫） 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 （芥川龍之介）," and "Ulysses" by James Joyce, a masterpiece translated by Wen and her husband Xiao Qian（蕭乾）, 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."文潔若，蕭乾先生的夫人，貴州貴陽人，1927年生於北京，1950年畢業於清華大學外國語文學系英語專業。曾任職於三聯書店，1979年加入中國作家協會。歷任人民文學出版社整理科編輯、編審，蘇聯東歐組編輯，外文部亞洲組日本文學翻譯，《日本文學》叢書(19卷)主編，日本文學研究會理事，中國翻譯協會會員。 1985-1986年為日本國際交流基金會訪問學者和東京東洋大學客座研究員，赴日研究日本近代與現代文學。1980年代，多次赴英、美、德、挪威、新加坡、馬來西亞及中國香港等地，從事文學交流活動。2002年，被推選為世界華文文學家協會名譽理事。2004年，被評為資深翻譯家。2012年12月6日，被中國翻譯協會授予「翻譯文化終身成就獎」榮譽稱號。主要成就:　蕭乾先生在世時，文潔若總是被先生的光環「罩住」，其實她也是一位成績卓著的學者，是中國個人翻譯日文作品字數最多的翻譯家。據統計，在長達半個多世紀的時間裡，她先後翻譯了十四部長篇小說，十八部中篇小說，一百多篇短篇小說，共計八百餘萬字。日本的井上靖、川端康成、水上勉、三島由紀夫等人的作品都是經她的翻譯介紹給中國讀者的。
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