MCLC: Fu Lei awards 2013

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Fu Lei awards 2013
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Source: Global Times (12/15/13):
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/832227.shtml#.UrDrdWRDujI

Literature's crème de la crème
By Liao Danlin

Veteran translator Liu Fang won one of the top prizes at the Fu Lei
Translation and Publication Awards ceremony held December 12 at the French
Embassy in Beijing, with few people more surprised at her success than the
81-year-old scribe herself.

Liu said in her acceptance speech that she viewed her job translating
French literature into Chinese as "just a hobby."

"I wasn't prepared to give this speech. I'd never even heard of the awards
before I was nominated," Liu said.

Liu took the top prize in the fiction category for her translation of
Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel. Shen Jian and Zhu Xiaohan triumphed
in the social sciences category for Centuries of Childhood by Philippe
Arièsin, while Cao Dongxue won the Seedling Prize for Democracy in America
by Alexis de Tocqueville. The Seedling Prize, which made its debut this
year, is awarded to newcomers to encourage young translators bridging the
gap in French and Chinese literature.

Judging on behalf of readers

Named after Chinese master translator and writer Fu Lei (1908-1966), the
first awards ceremony was held in 2009 by the French Embassy. The 2008
Nobel Literature laureate, JMG Le Clézio, presented the inaugural prizes.

The three awards are each worth 8,000 euros ($10,987) in prize money,
which is split between publishing houses and translators. Unlike previous
years, last week's winners were unaware of their success until just before
the award ceremony began. Final votes were still being tallied as guests
and media arrived at the event that very night.

Jury members responsible for voting were reduced this year from 12 to
eight experts, of whom half were Chinese and the other half were French.
Apart from the eight jury members, there were additional guest juries:
novelist Yu Hua and literature critic Zhou Guoping, as well as two winners
from last year, who cast their ballots in the all-important final round of
voting. 

Dong Qiang, director of French language department at Peking University
and president of the jury, noted that the involvement of Yu and Zhou added
a new dimension to the judging process of this year's awards.

"They don't speak French, but they both have read a large number of French
novels translated into Chinese. They offered insight as readers with a
professional point of view," said Dong, who said Yu had identified a
grammar mistake that led him to refer back to the original French
sentence. "I knew Yu was right when I had another look of the original. We
have all read a lot of translated books, and we know what is of high
quality even without reading the book in French. Judgment was not based on
word-to-word faithfulness in translation."

Increased communications

French Ambassador to China Sylvie Bermann said during the ceremony that
more French books are translated into Chinese than any other language
every year, leading to stronger communication between the two countries'
literary worlds, an important part of the cultural collaboration.

"The theme of the Paris Book Fair next year will be Chinese literature,
especially Shanghai literature," Bermann said.

Dong told the Global Times that China has a deep pool of quality French
literary translators, adding that French translators also rank among the
world's best at translating contemporary Chinese literature.

"However, the skills of Chinese translators vary. Many translated books
are full of errors. French-Chinese translation can only be called 'tall'
among a field of dwarves," said Dong, acknowledging that great translators
must have years of experience - a feat few Chinese translators can boast.

The success of Canadian author Alice Munro, who won the 2013 Nobel
Literature Prize, has also encouraged many Chinese publishing houses to
pay more attention to French literature in Canada and other Francophone
countries that have historically been neglected by Chinese translators,
said Dong. 

"Alliance Francaise (an international organization that promotes French
worldwide) and the achievements of Munro can bring more interest to
different literature. I also hope the Fu Lei Translation and Publication
Awards can do the same in the future," said Dong.