MCLC: the world has yet to see the best of Chinese lit

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Anne Henochowicz <anne at chinadigitaltimes.net>
Subject: the world has yet to see the best of Chinese lit
***************************************************************

Source: China Digital Times (3/15/13):
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/03/the-world-has-yet-to-see-the-best-of-c
hinese-literature/

The World Has Yet to See the Best of Chinese LiteratureThe 2012 Man Asian
Literary Prize, which celebrates works of literature by Asian authors
either written or translated into English, was awarded yesterday to Tan
Twan Eng 
<http://thediplomat.com/sport-culture/2013/03/15/tan-twan-eng-wins-man-asia
n-literary-prize/> for his The Garden of Evening Mists, making him the
first Malaysian to win the award. Of the six times the prize has so far
been awarded, Chinese authors have taken three: Jian Rong took the
initiatory award for Wolf Totem; the 2009 award was given to Su Tong for
The Road to Redemption; and the winner for 2010 was Bi Feiyu for Three
Sisters. On the eve of the announcement of this year’s winner and as the
controversy surrounding Mo Yan’s Nobel Prize for Literature still lingers,
The Spectator explains how censorship and recent history is keeping
Chinese literature from reaching its apex, and how Western expectations
are limiting the world from seeing the best of Chinese literature
<http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/books/2013/03/the-world-has-yet-to-see-the-be
st-of-chinese-literature/>:

<<[...]The reasons for this are firstly economic, reckons Julia Lovell,
author of The Opium War: ‘Most books have to turn a profit for publishers,
and this can make editors and their boards quite conservative about their
choices. They need to look for books that seem to recapitulate styles and
ideas that have worked in the past. Anything new will, of course, seem a
risk.’

One experienced literary agent here puts it more bluntly: ‘For Western
publishers and readerships, there’s a certain expectation of what China
is, and if they don’t get it they don’t like it.’ While the agent concedes
that attitudes are changing for the better, cultural biases coupled with
the need for a successful product have nonetheless helped to establish a
template for translated Chinese fiction.

The stories usually take place in the past, not the present, and in rural
rather than urban settings, according to Thomlinson. The Cultural
Revolution memoir is one type. As dominant examples of Chinese writing in
the West, books like these have helped to perpetuate a skewed idea of the
country’s modern literature and culture.[...]>>

Similarly, the Global Times mentions how a language barrier keeps the
world from seeing much of China’s literary scene, and how censorship
threatens integrity in China’s homegrown literary scene
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/767875.shtml#.UUMWN9Ea8xc>:

<<“It seems that the higher the fluency in English of the writers, the
more 
easily will they be accepted by international readers,” said Peng Lun,
foreign literature editor of the Shanghai 99 Readers’ Culture Company.
[...]“India, like China, is a vast territory which is endowed with
multiple ethnic groups and diversified cultures. And the fluency of
English there has enabled writers to convey their original thoughts to
readers,” Peng told the Global Times. “However, most Chinese writers still
suffer the challenge of this language barrier.”

[...]Problems of translation are not the only barrier to greater
recognition of the current Asian literature scene. Censorship also poses a
threat to the quality and integrity of writing on the continent. But
although literary works are still being censored in China, Li said that
the restraints have loosened a little in recent years.>>