Bonnie S. McDougall

In Translation Stories from Modern China, Professor Bonnie S. McDougall gives readers a rare firsthand account of not just the career but the international life of a trailblazing translator. From the unexpected beginnings of her passion for modern Chinese literature when she accidentally enrolled in a Chinese class in Australia to being sent to Peking University, McDougall details the experiences that sparked a lifelong obsession with translating.This riveting book offers a rare glimpse into McDougall's work at the Foreign Languages Press and her encounters with some of the most avant-garde writers in China in the early 1980s. McDougall reveals what it was like to translate the works of Bei Dao, Chen Kaige, He Qifang, and Mao Zedong and to work with translators like Gladys Yang and Yang Xianyi. She also discusses how she delved into the enthralling and previously overlooked love life and sexual history of literary giants Lu Xun and Xu Guangping, unraveling stories from the 1920s and 1930s that have been shrouded in mystery. McDougall's exploration doesn't stop there; she delves into the vibrant world of modern Hong Kong literature, bringing her narrative into the present day. The penultimate chapter unveils her thought-provoking ideas on literary translation, culminating in her latest obsession, "we own our own words," highlighting the profound connection between translators and their craft.This memoir is not just a chronicle of McDougall's extraordinary career but a thrilling adventure through modern Chinese literary translation and life, where she has been both a keen observer and an active participant. Insightful and humorous, readers will be enlightened and entertained by the vivid storytelling of a true pioneer.*Includes photos.

The essays in this volume constitute an exceptionally broad and inclusive account of Chinese literature and performing arts since 1949. Extending beyond fiction to poetry and drama, and covering song, opera, and film as well, these essays reveal a more lively and varied cultural life than that disclosed by studies confined to fiction and literary politics. Rather than stopping at the assumption that art reflects Party or government policy, the essays uncover the traditional roots of popular literature and performing art by employing literary and artistic methods of analysis. While often lacking in appeal to Western audiences, these popular arts nonetheless have their own artistic validity and convey complex meanings to broadly based Chinese audiences. The materials and analyses presented here have social as well as cultural relevance. Variety and change rather than monolithic uniformity have characterized post-1949 cultural bureaucracies, writers, performers, and audiences. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

The essays in this volume constitute an exceptionally broad and inclusive account of Chinese literature and performing arts since 1949. Extending beyond fiction to poetry and drama, and covering song, opera, and film as well, these essays reveal a more lively and varied cultural life than that disclosed by studies confined to fiction and literary politics. Rather than stopping at the assumption that art reflects Party or government policy, the essays uncover the traditional roots of popular literature and performing art by employing literary and artistic methods of analysis. While often lacking in appeal to Western audiences, these popular arts nonetheless have their own artistic validity and convey complex meanings to broadly based Chinese audiences. The materials and analyses presented here have social as well as cultural relevance. Variety and change rather than monolithic uniformity have characterized post-1949 cultural bureaucracies, writers, performers, and audiences. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

The authors and audiences for twentieth century Chinese literature, especially fiction, are examined in a fresh light in this book. While modern Chinese fictions are imaginary in that they do not constitute reliable portraits of Chinese life, they can reveal fascinating insights into the writers themselves and their implied audiences. The book also includes substantial reference to poetry, drama, film, and the visual arts as well as to the political and social context in which they appear.

The authors and audiences for twentieth century Chinese literature, especially fiction, are examined in a fresh light in this book. While modern Chinese fictions are imaginary in that they do not constitute reliable portraits of Chinese life, they can reveal fascinating insights into the writers themselves and their implied audiences. The book also includes substantial reference to poetry, drama, film, and the visual arts as well as to the political and social context in which they appear.

This book opens up three new topics in modern Chinese literary history: the intimate lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping as a couple; real and imagined love-letters in modern Chinese literature; and concepts of privacy in China. The scandalous affair between modern China's greatest writer and his former student is revealed in their letters to each other between 1925 and 1929. Publication of the letters in a heavily edited version in 1933 was intended partly to profit from a current trend for literary couples to publish their private letters, but another reason was to assert control over their love story, taking it away from the gossip-mongers. The biographies in Part I, based on the unedited letters, reveal such hitherto neglected information as Xu Guangping's early tendencies towards lesbianism; her gender reversal games and Lu Xun's willing participation in them; Xu Guangping's two early attempts at suicide; and Lu Xun's attempts to play down Xu Guangping's political activism and to impress readers with his own militancy. Part II shows how Lu Xun chose to publish their edited letters in the context of current Chinese epistolary fiction and love-letters published by their authors. Part III provides unique evidence on the nature of privacy in modern China through a comparison between the unedited and edited correspondence. Textual evidence shows their intimate secrets about their affairs, their bodies, and their domestic lives; their fear of gossip; their longing for a secluded life together; and their ambivalent attitudes towards the traditional conflict between public service and private or selfish interests. Although it has sometimes been claimed that Chinese culture lacks a sense of privacy, this study reveals the contents, functions, and values of privacy in the early twentieth century.

This text surveys the literature of the Chinese mainland, concentrating on fiction, poetry and drama, with background surveys on the historical, social and cultural context, and chapters on individual writers and their works. It assumes no knowledge of Chinese. Topics include: the role of writers and the function of literature in a modernizing society; the long, native chinese tradition; the emphasis on culture and propaganda in a modernizing state; the relation of writers to their readers; and writers general impact on modern Chinese society.

This text surveys the literature of the Chinese mainland, concentrating on fiction, poetry and drama, with background surveys on the historical, social and cultural context, and chapters on individual writers and their works. It assumes no knowledge of Chinese. Topics include: the role of writers and the function of literature in a modernizing society; the long, native chinese tradition; the emphasis on culture and propaganda in a modernizing state; the relation of writers to their readers; and writers general impact on modern Chinese society.

The three sections of Bei Dao's affecting new book of poems, Old Snow--"Berlin," "Oslo," "Stockholm"--are poignant reminders of the restless and rootless life of the exile. All the poems in the present bilingual volume were written post-Tiananmen Square (June 4, 1989), and the poet refers back to this watershed both overtly ("Not your bodies but your souls/ shall share a common birthday') and in dense images of loss and betrayal ("old snow comes constantly, new snow comes not at all/ the art of creation is lost"). As renowned China scholar, Jonathan Spence commented on Bei Dao's earlier book, The August Sleepwalker: "The poet was obliged to create a new poetic idiom that was simultaneously a protective camouflage and an appropriate vehicle for 'unreality.'" Bonnie S. McDougall, whose translations of Bei Dao have been called "a major achievement in themselves," is Professor of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh. Working with Chinese writer in exile Chen Maiping (now residing in Oslo), she once again renders Bei Dao's poems into fluid and musical English.