Fan Hua gets 'lost in translation' at top French book fair

Last year, Jin Yucheng's Fan Hua (Blooming flowers) was taken to Salon Du Livre, France's largest book fair, along with other contemporary Chinese literary works such as Bi Feiyu's Subei Youth "Don Quixote".

The two books attracted the attention of Editions Philippe Picquier, a French publisher that specializes in translating books from China, Japan, South Korea, India, Vietnam and other countries in Asia. This publisher reportedly purchased the copyright for Subei Youth "Don Quixote", a nonfiction work about the writer's childhood in East China's Jiangsu province, for 130,000 euros ($143,000).

Editions Philippe Picquier was also interested in Fan Hua, but didn't follow up owing to translation issues.

The book is Jin's debut novel, which is set in Shanghai and tells stories of two decades: the 1960s and the '90s. There are no major plots, but excerpts from the lives of its different characters, threaded by dialogues. There are detailed depictions of streets, entertainment activities and relationships in the representative times in Shanghai, covering the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and the reform and opening-up phases.

As Hong Kong-based film director Wong Kar-wai put it, the novel is full of a "rich and strong" flavor of local people's lives.

In May 2011, when Jin, then an editor at a literary magazine in Shanghai, started to post interesting stories he heard about Shanghai on the local website longdang.org, little did he realize that it would become more than just fun. His stories soon attracted more readers whose comments urged him to post more.

In five months, Jin, then 59, wrote more than 330,000 characters online. The novel was first titled Shanghai Abao after its major character Abao. The following year, Jin started serializing his novel in Harvest, one of China's leading literary magazines.

Finally, Jin's efforts resulted in a book in 2013, and with it came lots of awards, including this year's prestigious Mao Dun Literature Award.

Some critics compare it with fellow Shanghai-based author Eileen Chang's novels and A Dream of Red Mansions, calling Jin's book one of the best novels on Shanghai.

Wong also announced that he would adapt Jin's book for cinema by 2020.

By August, before the Mao Dun award winners were announced, Fan Hua had sold nearly 300,000 copies, Jiefang Daily reported.

Key features of the novel include the use of local Shanghai dialect for the narrative and focus on the characters' external responses to events rather than their psychological profiles.

To let readers understand the story, Jin, who regards Mandarin as his second language, revised the dialect and the novel more than 20 times.

"In the past 30 years that I've edited Chinese literature, I've seen many manuscripts become Westernized because Chinese writers are reading more foreign books, either translated works or in the original languages," he says. "But traditional writing in China presents intensive and concise depiction of settings and many characters just come and go."

Jin says he once came across a foreign translator who said that translating Chinese literature often didn't require a dictionary as many Chinese writers wrote using common expressions.

"It's too bad. Novelists need a rich vocabulary," Jin adds.

While language is the essence of literature, many foreign readers cannot read Chinese novels as they don't know Chinese. It is also easy to imagine the difficulties in finding a good translator as has been the case with Fan Hua.

But celebrated Chinese writers such as Mo Yan and Liu Cixin have been lucky in that aspect.

Mo Yan is a Nobel Prize winner and is known in the Western world, and Liu is a sci-fi writer who has received positive reviews for his books even in English-speaking markets, including the Hugo Award in August.

Mao Jingyan, the copyright manager for Fan Hua at Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, says: "According to my knowledge, Editions Philippe Picquier gave up because the translation work is expensive and they worry that the sales in the French market may not be able to cover the cost."

For instance, Changhen Ge (Song of regret) by Wang Anyi was also introduced by Editions Philippe Picquier to French readers.

The translation work took one and a half years, Jiefang Daily reported, and the publisher spent three years to complete the French edition of the book.

"But we have sold Fan Hua's copyright of the traditional Chinese edition to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. Also Humanist Publishing House from South Korea has purchased the copyright for the Korean edition," Mao says.

"Cultural difference is another barrier apart from language. In Asia, we have more in common when it comes to culture."

yangyangs@chinadaily.com.cn