Luedi Kong gives Monkey King epic the German treatment

Eva Luedi Kong has launched her German version of Journey to the West. The book also features illustrations restored by Zhang Xiaofeng, a professor of woodcut paintings at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. YANG FAN/CHINA DAILY

Before Luedi Kong, there were picture books and selected translations. But her work is based on a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) version of the book, published by the Zhonghua Book Company.

When she started working on the project－and had translated the first 60 chapters of the 100 in the text－she did not have a contract with a publisher.

"It might not have been wise of me to do that, but I think it was finally worth the effort. The book unfolded a grand and profound world to me. It kind of reshaped me, too. And I just wanted to share that splendor with other German readers," she says.

Dieter Meier, editor of her publisher Reclam, says that he did not hesitate when Luedi Kong contacted them.

"I like this book very much and I was first introduced to it when watching the animated film Uproar in Heaven in Stuttgart many years ago. This sparked my interest in classical Chinese novels, and when living in Shanghai for six months in 2000, I read a French translation of Outlaws of the Marsh, which furthered my interest," says Meier.

Known for its "universal library" series, Reclam has packaged the Chinese story with a "popular and picturesque" book design with Sun Wukong and Chinese characters on the bright yellow cover.

The book also features illustrations restored by Zhang Xiaofeng, a professor of woodcut paintings at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province.

"I think publishing this translation could be a milestone for classical Chinese fiction in German-speaking countries," says Meier, adding that he is contacting translators for other Chinese books.

Meier says Luedi Kong is an excellent translator and he knows how long and tough the journey was for her to translate typical Chinese thoughts and ideology, blended with Buddhism and Taoism, into a German context.

Born in 1968, Luedi Kong studied Sinology at the University of Zurich. Then, in 1990, she moved to Hangzhou, where she attended the China Academy of Art.

Later, she was a lecturer at both the academy and at Zhejiang University, and a freelance translator.

Before she began to work on her latest book, she got herself a Master's degree in classic Chinese literature from Zhejiang University. "And to refine my German writing, when I was translating, I studied 18th and 19th century German literature at the same time, and got great help with my poetic rhetoric from Goethe's writing," she says.

"The most difficult part comes with first the Buddhist references and then Taoist thoughts. I felt obliged to understand them before I began translating, so I read, researched and met relevant experts, and even went to see monks," she says.

"The notions and concepts have to be clearly explained and translated, not avoided, or worse, deleted or omitted, simply because they are difficult to understand," she says.