Three years ago, I was at Vermont Studio Center, translating Yi Sha, also getting attention, experience, and inspiration for my own stuff. Yi Sha still remembers our residence in his poetry. I posted his “National Day” last week, along with links to Liu Xiaobo’s last note on NY Review of Books and to translations of Liu Xia’s poems. What is the connection? When Yi Sha and I were in Vermont, we didn’t talk about Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, as far as I remember. He was very much interested in who would get the Nobels for literature and for peace, also if any science Nobels would go to Chinese people. Nobody else at VSC was interested in the Nobel announcements. Last year Yi Sha wrote a poem about this experience. I have just translated it, along with two other poems he has written just now, also harking back to VSC. You can read the Nobel one below. The others are on my blog, along with the originals.
https://banianerguotoukeyihe.com/2017/10/08/light-%e4%bc%8a%e6%b2%99-yi-sha/
Yi Sha did mention Woeser 唯色. Was it at VSC? Maybe it was later. He said it was a shame he could not promote her poetry in China, because of her dissident status. Her poems from the end of the 1990s and around 2000 had been and were still outstanding, he said. Did he ever tell me about his connection to Liu Xiaobo? I am not sure now. I am not primarily interested in dissidents. I edited and co-translated the first Liu Xiaobo bio in a Western language in 2010, but that was basically by accident. I had met Bei Ling at Frankfurt book fair in 2009, and in 2010 after the Nobel announcement he got his essay on Liu Xiaobo in my translation into the FAZ and other newspapers, and the bio snowballed from that. Certainly nothing to do with Yi Sha. I am not primarily interested in either dissidents or Nobels. But ever since Gao Xingjian in 2000, literature and exile and opposition to the system in China have been inextricably linked with the Swedish and Norwegian Nobel committees. Gao Xingjian was a big coup in 2000. He was relatively unknown. In Austria and in Germany, his win was first announced on the radio already along with the comments of the sore loser who had translated Bei Dao. I was a little ashamed for Chinese studies and went on to read Gao Xingjian’s novels in Chinese, with help from Mabel Lee’s translations. The German translations only came out later. Gao’s fiction, especially Soul Mountain, is not easy to read at all. Doesn’t come out in translation. The language reminded me of the Ge Fei in his earlier days, even more tinged with southern Chinese. I didn’t watch Gao’s Nobel speech at the time. Only twelve years later, another dragon year, when Mo Yan got the prize, Gao Xingjian’s speech went viral. It was not even blocked on the internet in China, although Gao was and is still blocked out in general, on- and offline. Great speech.
So what is Yi Sha’s connection to Liu Xiaobo? I already posted about this, but maybe you still don’t know. Liu was Yi Sha’s advisor for his graduation thesis in Chinese literature at Beijing Normal University in 1988 and 1989. Yi Sha even wrote a poem titled “Liu Xiaobo” in 1988. He showed it around online right after Liu Xiaobo died. It was not deleted, because it was a picture, so the name didn’t stand out. But Yi Sha also mentioned his teacher later, in poems from 2011, for example. He posted those, along with new ones, and they weren’t deleted either. All very interesting, including the first one from 1988, especially in one respect. They are very ambiguous. Openly so, of course, this is Yi Sha. In-your-face-ambiguous.
Actually, I am not very much interested in the supposed Nobel complex. Does it only exist among mainland Chinese intellectuals? How is it connected to other questions about Chinese overseas, literature and exile ever since Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen? Yes, this topic was mentioned in the MCLC issue on Gao Xingjian. Would be interesting to pursue it, but I am mainly interested in poetry. Writing and translating poetry. Aside from or with my kids. Yi Sha has a new book with my translations.
http://www.fabriktransit.net/buecher/111-ueberquerung-des-gelben-flusses2.html
Liu Xia’s poetry is good. Some people thought she should get a Nobel, apparently. Only read about it today, in a posting in French. Béatrice Desgranges has been very active with a petition for more attention to Liu Xia in France. She has also translated a few poems. I don’t speak enough French to be able to judge the translations, or even the other stuff. But if you are in France or read French a lot, check it out. She has a cartoon video by Baidiucao today. Here is her main petition link. You can scroll down for the links to the poems.
Yi Sha
PLAINLY SAID IT’S LIKE THIS
Two years ago at this time
I was in Vermont.
In that month,
I was with poets and writers, all kinds of artists,
everyone doing their stuff.
60 people,
I was the only one waiting for news on the Nobel.
I asked them
why they didn’t care.
They gave me strange looks,
like I was some Chinese bug on the ground.
Oh, we have such a deep Nobel complex,
it’s in our cultural genes.
Plainly said it’s opportunism,
always looking for shortcuts,
no doubt about it.
October 2016
Translated by MW, October 2017
Best,
Martin Winter <dujuan99@gmail.com>