Source: Paper Republic (12/13/21)
2021 Roll Call of Published Translations from Chinese into English
By Nicky Harman
There’s good and bad news this year. The good news is that books translated from Chinese have won an encouragingly wide selection of translation prizes and awards. For the first time, we have listed them below in different categories: prizes, awards and ‘other successes’. The not-so-good news is that, as in previous years, women writers and women poets are far less well-represented than men. The gender imbalance in all categories is shocking!
As usual, please let us know if you’d like to add books, star reviews and awards that we may have missed off the lists. Finally, we’re delighted to be able to add links to lists of books translated from Chinese into other languages. (Do let us know if there are more we can include.)
Star Reviews
The Secret Talker: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-300403-0
Faraway: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5420-3120-2
The Secret Talker: https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/the-secret-talker-by-yan-geling/
The Wedding Party: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/yi-chin-lo/faraway/
Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-78108-852-4
Winter Pasture: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-66260-033-3
Prizes, Awards and Other Successes
Prizes
Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, tr. Jeremy Tiang (Tilted Axis) was Runner-Up in the 2021 Warwick Women in Translation Prize.
Raised by Wolves: Poems and Conversations by Amang, tr. Steve Bradbury, won the American PEN Award for Poetry in Translation
I Live in the Slums by Can Xue was longlisted for the Booker International Prize
Anniversary Snow by Yang Lian, translated from Chinese by Brian Holton and others (Shearsman Books), won the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry In Translation.
The ALTA National Translation Award in Prose Longlist included Can Xue’s I Live in the Slums, tr. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping, and Sanmao’s Stories of the Sahara, tr. Mike Fu. The Sanmao was also shortlisted. In the Poetry section, Yi Lei’s My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree, tr. Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi, and The Selected Poems of Tu Fu, tr David Hinton, were longlisted.
Ge Fei’s Peach Blossom Paradise, tr. Canaan Morse, was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Karen Hung Curtis, won Highly Commended in the John Dryden Competition for her translation of (Desert) War Diaries. The longlist also included Chen Du and Xisheng Chen for The World’s Ten Portraits (from “Rock Arrangement”) by Yan An, and Jack Hargreaves for Little Miss Box Person by Shen Dacheng.
The 2021 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation shortlist included The Selected Poems of Tu Fu tr. David Hinton
And A History of Taiwan Literature by Ye Shitao, tr. Christopher Lupke, won the MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature.
Awards
PEN/Heim Translation Grants were awarded to Natascha Bruce for Owlish and the Music-Box Ballerina by Dorothy Tse, and to May Huang for her translation of Young Gods by Chiou Charng-Ting
English PEN Translates awards went to Flowers of Lhasa by Tsering Yangkyi, translated from the Tibetan by Christopher Peacock (Balestier Press), and Cocoon by Zhang Yueran, translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (World Editions).
Other Successes
Zhu Yue’s short story, “Leaving Home,” translated by Jianan Qian and Alyssa Asquith, was selected for the 2020 Best of the Net Anthology
World Literature Todays 100 Notable Translations of 2021 include
Ai Weiwei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, trans. Allan H. Barr (Penguin)
Chen Jiatong, White Fox in the Forest, illus. Viola Wang, trans. Jennifer Feeley (Chicken House)
Liu Cixin, To Hold Up the Sky, trans. various (Tor Books)
Li Juan, Winter Pasture: One Woman’s Journey with China’s Kazakh Herders, translated by Paper Republic’s very own Jack Hargreaves & Yan Yan (Astra House)
General Fiction
Zhou Daxin, Longevity Park, tr. James Trapp (Sinoist)
Feng Jicai, A Looking-Glass World, tr. Olivia Milburn (Sinoist)
Jia Pingwa, The Mountain Whisperer, tr. Christopher Payne (Sinoist)
Chang Yu-Ko, Whisper, tr. Roddy Flagg (Honford Star)
Liu Xinwu, The Wedding Party tr. Jeremy Tiang (AmazonCrossing)
Lo Yi-Chin, Faraway: A Novel, tr. Jeremy Tiang (Columbia UP)
Yan Geling, The Secret Talker, tr. Jeremy Tiang (HarperVia)
Yan Lianke, Hard Like Water, tr. Carlos Rojas (Grove)
Huang Chun-Ming, Raise the Bottle, Short Stories, tr. Howard Goldblatt (Balestier)
Can Xue, Purple Perilla, tr. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Common Era Inc.)
Chang Kuo-Li, The Sniper, trans. from the Chinese by Roddy Flagg (Spiderline)
Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader, edited by Howard Chiang, translators unnamed (Cambria)
Science Fiction, Fantasy and Martial Arts fiction
Chen Qiufan (Stanley Chan), AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future, tr. Emily Jin (Virgin Digital/WH Allen)
Chi Ta-wei The Membranes, tr. Larissa Heinrich (Columbia UP)
Hao Jingfang, Vagabonds, tr. Ken Liu (Gallery/Saga Press);
Jin Yong, A Heart Divided (Legends of the Condor Heroes 4), tr. Gigi Chang and Shelly Bryant (Maclehose)
Liu Cixin, The Wandering Earth tr. Christophe Bec, Stefano Raffaele, S. Qiouyi Lu (Talos Press)
MXTX, The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System Vol. 1, tr. Faelicy and Lily (Seven Seas)
Various authors, The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, editors, Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang, various translators (Tor)
Sinopticon 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, tr. Xueting Christine Ni (Solaris)
Non-Fiction
Ai Weiwei, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, tr. Allan Barr (PenguinRandomHouse)
Cai Chongda, Vessel: A Memoir, tr. Dylan Levi King (Harper Collins) Mo Yan, Mo Yan Speaks: Lectures and Speeches by the Nobel Laureate from China, tr. Xu Shiyan (Cambria)
Leo Ou-fan Lee and Lee Yuk Ying, Ordinary Days: A Memoir, tr. Annie Ren Luman and Carol Ong, ed. John Minford (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press)
Li Juan, Winter Pasture tr. Jack Hargreaves and Yan Yan (Astra)
Li Juan, Distant Sunflower Fields, tr. Christopher Payne (Sinoist)
Liang Hong, China in One Village, the Story of One Town and the Changing World, tr. Emily Goedde (Verso)
Shen Yang, More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter, tr. Nicky Harman, (Balestier)
Su Tong, Open Air Cinema, Reminiscences and Micro-essays, Tr. Haiwang Yuan, James Trapp, Nicky Harman, Olivia Milburn (Sinoist)
Various, Writing in Difficult Times: A Bilingual Essay Anthology, tr. Mary King Bradley, Kate Costello, Ernest Ip, ed. Nicholas Wong and Li Mei Ting (Cart Noodles, HK)
Yang Jisheng The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, tr. Stacy Mosher, Jian Guo (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Poetry
Duo Duo, Words as Grain, tr. Lucas Klein (Yale UP)
Li Bai an Du Fu in Scots, Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds, tr. Brian Holton(Taproot Press)
Ma Yan, I Name Him Me: Selected Poems, tr. Stephen Nashef (Ugly Duckling)
Shang Qin, The All-Seeing Eye: Collected Poems, tr. John Balcom (Cambria)
Wang Yin, Ghosts City Sea, tr. Andrea Lingenfelter (Seaweed Salad)
Yan An, A Naturalist’s Manor, tr. Chen Du and Xisheng Chen (Chax)
Yu Xiuhua, Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm, Poems and Essays, tr. Fiona Sze-Lorrain (Astra)
Song Lin, The Gleaner Song, Collected Poems, tr. Dong Li (Giramondo, Australia, and Deep Vellum, USA)
Various poets, Mirrors and Windows, ed. and tr. Anna Yin (Guernica)
Drama
Wei Yu-Chia, A Fable For Now, tr. Jeremy Tiang (Laertes Books)
Children
Chen Jiatong, White Fox in the Forest, tr. Jennifer Feeley (Chicken House Books)
Peng Xuejun, Mud Paws, tr. Scott Rainen (Prunus)
Julia Liu, Leilong the Library Bus, illus. Bei Lynn (Gecko Press)
Wang Yage, Playing with Lanterns, tr. Helen Wang, illus. Zhu Chengliang (Amazon Crossing)
Cao Wenxuan, Dragonfly Eyes, tr. Helen Wang (Walker Books)
Xue Tao, September’s Frozen River, tr. Kyle Anderson (China Translation Publishing House)
Yang Hongying, The Adventures of the Silly Pig, tr. Kyle Anderson (China Translation Publishing House)
Children’s picture books, published by Reycraft 2021
CCPPG = Translation provided by China Children’s Press and Publication Group Co., Ltd.
I Love You, by Shige Chen, illus. Pia Valentinis and Mario Onnis, tr. LeeAnn Geiberger (Reycraft, 2021)
Gray Bunny’s Great Adventure, by Ping Yi, illus. Zhenjun Liu, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
I Want To…, by Hongbo Gao, illus. Sixin Cheng, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
The Second Race of Rabbit and Tortoise, by Dan Luo, illus. Jie Huang, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft Books, 2021)
A Summer Night Concert, by Xiren Tong, illus. Sixin Cheng, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Chick, Chick, Peep, Peep, Peep, by Xiao Mao, illus. Hisana Sawada, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Oil-paper Umbrella, by Lu Xu, illus. Anastasia Arkhipova, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
The Story of Morin Khuur, by Baoerji Yuanye, illus. Guituzi, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Look at you! Look at the mess you made!, by Hsu-Kung Liu, tr. Les Gouttes Press (Reycraft, 2021)
Home, by Lian-En Lin, tr. Papa Publishing House/Yes Creative Ltd (Reycraft, 2021)
Grandpa and Me, by Lu Xu, illus. Javier Zabala, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Across the River, by Tao Xue, illus. Anastasia Arkhipova, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
The Little Car, by Xu Han, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Raining, by Pingping Xu, illus. Graça Lima, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021)
Once Upon a Time There Was an Elephant, by Shige Chen, illus. Yinzhi Qin, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021) My Dragon Boat Festival, by Bing Ge, illus. Li Li, tr. CCPPG (Reycraft, 2021) Lemon Butterfly, by Cao Wenxuan, illus. Roger Mello (Reycraft, 2021)
Translators from Chinese into other languages have of course been busy as well. We are delighted to list the following links. Please add other links and languages in Comments below, and we will include them here.
Chinese to Dutch translations, listed at Verretaal http://www.unileiden.net/verretaal
Chinese to Spanish translations (published in Spain but not Latin America) listed here: https://dtieao.uab.cat/txicc/lite/. It includes books translated into Galician, Catalan and Basque too.
Chinese to Swedish translations, although Blogger may not be accessible in China. https://baodaobooks.blogspot.com/2021/11/arets-bocker-2021.html
Chinese to French translations listed here: http://www.chinese-shortstories.com