Another shameful review of a book in translation that neglects to mention, let alone discuss, the translator (Carlos Rojas). At the end of the review as published on the Asian Review of Books page (http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/new/?ID=2180), Rojas gets mention with the rest of the publication information, but the print is so small it didn’t make it onto the MCLC reprint. Yet with that publication information not appearing at the head of the article, and the translator and his translation never being brought up in the review, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine a low-information reader getting the impression that Yan Lianke’s “attempt to write … without any concern for the prospect of getting published” meant that he wrote Four Books in English rather than in Chinese.
I thought things would have been different with Asian Review of Books, which published an online discussion about translation with Julia Lovell, myself, and a few translators from other languages (http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/new/?ID=1775). But no.
Lucas Klein <lklein@hku.hk>