Striving to translate Chinese into Swedish
By Hu Min |
June 3, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
For Anna Gustafsson Chen, one of only two Swedes dedicated to translating Chinese novels into Swedish, life is interwoven with "beautiful mistakes and coincidences."
She planned to become a Latin scholar, but it turned out to be Chinese. She never thought of being a part-time translator, but the idea grabbed her when she was buying vegetables. There's not much demand for Chinese novels in Sweden, so she only works part-time. She works full time preparing materials for the seeing impaired.
Over the past 20 years, 47-year-old Chen (she uses her Chinese husband's surname, Chen) who lives in Stockholm, has translated around 20 novels by famous writers such as Wang Anyi, Mo Yan and Yu Hua into Swedish, as well as 10 English novels into Swedish.
She is married to Wan Zhi (pen name), who translated "Aniara," a poem of science fiction by the Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson (1904-78) into Chinese.
Chen was recently in Shanghai for the launch of "Aniara" in Chinese.
Speaking of "mistakes and coincidences," her choice of Chinese study was initially a "mistake." She had wanted to study Latin at Stockholm University but there were only five seats the Latin class - and 25 openings for Chinese. She took Chinese because it was "funny and exotic."
"In the beginning, I was not so happy but now I am very happy. It was a very good mistake and a good accident."
In the 1980s it was difficult to learn Chinese because there was no Internet, no movies and few Chinese to talk to.
In 1987, she went to Beijing as a tourist. "In those days, people in China didn't really talk to you and you couldn't go out and have coffee with someone. It was very strict and foreigners could not go to someone's home freely."
All that has changed. Today Chen even has a weibo microblog account "for fun."
Chen used to work in museums and libraries. Now she works at the Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille. While pursuing her PhD in Chinese studies at Lund University, she translated short stories from various Chinese writers.
After graduation she didn't translate for two years. "I didn't think I would be a translator," she said.
One day, while buying vegetables she ran into a publisher who read Chinese and asked if there were any good Chinese books she wanted to translate.
At that time, Chen was reading Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum" - it was the first book she translated into Swedish. "I wash lucky, I just went there to buy vegetables," she said.
She translates at her spare time, but translating doesn't pay the rent.
She likes sad stories, such as Yu Hua's "To Live."
At this time, the only other Swedish translator of Chinese is her former teacher Goran Malmqvist, distinguished sinologue and member of the Swedish Academy.
Only one or two Chinese books are published in Swedish every year.
"A lot of books I translated are very good, but they are very serious literature. Most ordinary readers like something exciting like crime fiction or love stories, and that's the same in Sweden and China."
Swedish publishers cannot read Chinese, so they rely on literary agents in the United States and the UK who sell them English-language translations. Then they decide whether to translate.
It can take many years for a Swedish translation to be published.
The biggest challenge in translation is not to understand the text but to find an expression in Swedish and translate the whole feeling in the text and the voice of the writer, Chen said.
"Sometimes even if you translate every word exactly right, you still get the wrong feeling," she said. "I understand everything perfectly well, but I want to find exactly the right word in Swedish, which is difficult. Sometimes, the word doesn't exist, sometimes Chinese words have different associations."
The most difficult book for her to understand is one about traditional Chinese medicine and qigong (breathing exercises and movement for health and healing).
Many specialized terms in Chinese have no equivalent in Swedish or English, so she turned to qigong practioners.
"Translation is not very well paid if you look at the number of working hours, but I get addicted."
"Everything I did is by coincidence, and I never made any strict plans."
Though she is dedicated to the Chinese language and has married a Chinese translator, her sons don't speak much Chinese. "I am angry with their father," she joked, "because he isn't teaching them."
She planned to become a Latin scholar, but it turned out to be Chinese. She never thought of being a part-time translator, but the idea grabbed her when she was buying vegetables. There's not much demand for Chinese novels in Sweden, so she only works part-time. She works full time preparing materials for the seeing impaired.
Over the past 20 years, 47-year-old Chen (she uses her Chinese husband's surname, Chen) who lives in Stockholm, has translated around 20 novels by famous writers such as Wang Anyi, Mo Yan and Yu Hua into Swedish, as well as 10 English novels into Swedish.
She is married to Wan Zhi (pen name), who translated "Aniara," a poem of science fiction by the Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson (1904-78) into Chinese.
Chen was recently in Shanghai for the launch of "Aniara" in Chinese.
Speaking of "mistakes and coincidences," her choice of Chinese study was initially a "mistake." She had wanted to study Latin at Stockholm University but there were only five seats the Latin class - and 25 openings for Chinese. She took Chinese because it was "funny and exotic."
"In the beginning, I was not so happy but now I am very happy. It was a very good mistake and a good accident."
In the 1980s it was difficult to learn Chinese because there was no Internet, no movies and few Chinese to talk to.
In 1987, she went to Beijing as a tourist. "In those days, people in China didn't really talk to you and you couldn't go out and have coffee with someone. It was very strict and foreigners could not go to someone's home freely."
All that has changed. Today Chen even has a weibo microblog account "for fun."
Chen used to work in museums and libraries. Now she works at the Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille. While pursuing her PhD in Chinese studies at Lund University, she translated short stories from various Chinese writers.
After graduation she didn't translate for two years. "I didn't think I would be a translator," she said.
One day, while buying vegetables she ran into a publisher who read Chinese and asked if there were any good Chinese books she wanted to translate.
At that time, Chen was reading Mo Yan's "Red Sorghum" - it was the first book she translated into Swedish. "I wash lucky, I just went there to buy vegetables," she said.
She translates at her spare time, but translating doesn't pay the rent.
She likes sad stories, such as Yu Hua's "To Live."
At this time, the only other Swedish translator of Chinese is her former teacher Goran Malmqvist, distinguished sinologue and member of the Swedish Academy.
Only one or two Chinese books are published in Swedish every year.
"A lot of books I translated are very good, but they are very serious literature. Most ordinary readers like something exciting like crime fiction or love stories, and that's the same in Sweden and China."
Swedish publishers cannot read Chinese, so they rely on literary agents in the United States and the UK who sell them English-language translations. Then they decide whether to translate.
It can take many years for a Swedish translation to be published.
The biggest challenge in translation is not to understand the text but to find an expression in Swedish and translate the whole feeling in the text and the voice of the writer, Chen said.
"Sometimes even if you translate every word exactly right, you still get the wrong feeling," she said. "I understand everything perfectly well, but I want to find exactly the right word in Swedish, which is difficult. Sometimes, the word doesn't exist, sometimes Chinese words have different associations."
The most difficult book for her to understand is one about traditional Chinese medicine and qigong (breathing exercises and movement for health and healing).
Many specialized terms in Chinese have no equivalent in Swedish or English, so she turned to qigong practioners.
"Translation is not very well paid if you look at the number of working hours, but I get addicted."
"Everything I did is by coincidence, and I never made any strict plans."
Though she is dedicated to the Chinese language and has married a Chinese translator, her sons don't speak much Chinese. "I am angry with their father," she joked, "because he isn't teaching them."
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
