By Edward Nawotka
Asia contains 60% of the world’s population, yet is has only been awarded a handful of Nobel Prize winning authors (Sweden has more prizes than all of Asia combined). Certainly, a large part of the problem is the fact that so few Asian authors have been translated, but the question is “why?” Is it due to some extent, as suggested by today’s feature story about the Chinese writer Han Han, to nuances of the culture being lost in translation.
It takes some head scratching to think of a Chinese or Asian author who has been able to attract a global audience in recent memory. From Japan, Haruki Murakami is perhaps the biggest international star (and the translation of Q184 (which is only finally reaching American audiences this fall) should help expand his profile. Among the Chinese authors to make it translation, HarperCollins took a big bet on Jiang Rong’s Wolf Totem, which proved to be a modest success but hardly the knockout bestseller that was anticipated.
Will Han Han, who’s first work appears in English next year, be able to do it? Perhaps, but there will be challenges. For starters, the first book being published here is not one of his Salinger-esque novels — the work that made him most popular — but a collection of essays, blog posts and other nonfiction ephemera. Secondly, by all accounts, Han Han isn’t necessarily interested in global fame — he has not traveled to overseas literary conferences and was notably absent when China was Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair two years ago. The simple fact may be that Han Han’s indigenous audience is so big and so demanding, there is little need to put effort into pursuing one overseas.
The irony in all this is that over the last decade hundreds (if not thousands of books) have been written about China in an effort to understand its economy, culture and people — yet we have so little words of their own to go by. But if the world’s culture goes the way its economy appears to be moving, we’re going to want to rectify that situation — and quickly.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
3 Comments
if you’re addicted to text messaging on your cell phone, this book is for you.
if you have had embarrassing relationships and courtships in highschool, this story shows repressed memories.
if you feel lost in the atmosphere of university life, falling into vice, and failing on your studies though people see you as intelligent, this book is for you. it wont give you answers; only more questions. ever ask why you still hang out with schoolmates who are seen as “bad influences”?
if you’re obsessed about sex and being inside the classroom only worsens it, you could relate to the story. hell, some of you probably wont read it if it has no showing of skin. but trust me, readers with classy tastes, by no means this book
can be called as “porn on paper”. tv shows like sex and the city and desperate housewives are way more vulgar compared to my story. ive presented my writing artistic enough that would make gabriel garcia marquez and pablo neruda proud of
me. (ha!)
if you love dancing in the graveyard on a rainy night, this book is for you.
if you’re living a life of instability, drifting from one job to another, feeling the world is conspiring against you, you are in the story.
if you’re sick and tired of religious and political hypocrisies but wont mind being entertained about them, well, come on in. be my guest in my not-so-divine comedy.
if you’re beginning to doubt the reality of reality, you’re now walking on surrealism. this story would heighten your dreamy state.
if you’ve been looking for the elusive meaning of Love, this book might help you find your way. but no guarantees.
if you don’t find it interesting, it’s because the story is already in you. with all the elements of the human drama, you are a book waiting to be opened.
http://orpheuscult75.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/summary-of-my-novel/
Wow, Eric, that’s quite a sales pitch! Is that what Han Han should do?
Maybe that’s Han Han’s problem in a nutshell: he probably just doesn’t want to get involved in that kind of Western game…
Because “globalization” is still a Western concept and something that started out in the West – Meaning America, Europe, Australia and maybe some of the more westernized advanced economies, like Japan. It started out in the so-called “West” and is only now spreading across the Earth.
So before Asia, and especially China, will agree to play the game according to our rules and jump in…Well, I really think they don’t need to and that may well be the eay they feel too!
Thanks, Claude. I might use that as my new query letter
No, Han Han doesn’t have to do that concerning he’s already a pop icon in China. Struggling and unsigned artists like me, however, would have to come up with some guerilla self-promotion to get our works heard.
China has already played the game not long ago, paved by the Tiananmen Square massacre. People demanded democratic reforms while the government just wanted market reforms without democracy. Now China is full of sweatshops, rising infrastructures, amusement parks, laborers learning English en masse — catching up with the world as fast as Han’s sports car.