In addition to the twelve books recommended by the Beijing News in 2021, we have also specially selected 3 kinds of "special tributes", including Translator of the Year, General Writing of the Year and Publishing Brand of the Year. These writings and readings, along with many good books, together make up a delightful landscape related to books in 2021.
2021 Beijing News annual reading recommendation special issue
Translator of the Year
Fan Ye
Friends of felines. He teaches in the Department of Spanish-Portuguese Language at the School of Foreign Chinese of Peking University, and has translated several Spanish literary works such as "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "Ten Thousand Fires Return to One", "Poets to the Future", and "Unknown University".
Tribute
The work of translation is full of hardships, which requires both familiarity with the language, understanding of the cultural background, a lot of time consumption, and at the same time facing various doubts after translation. In today's world, when a large number of publications are introduced every year, the quality of translation has become the most concerned and discussed topic for readers. In 2021, a translator spent seven years translating a nearly impossible translation, a novel called "Three Sorrowful Tigers" written in Spanish with a Cuban dialect, and the original author's preference for wordplay and joke puns left the novel full of difficult words to translate. The translator successfully connected this strange book with the Chinese, so that even if the reader reads the Chinese the translation, he can feel the clever construction of the original vocabulary.
We salute the book's translator, Fan Ye, who, over the past few years, from Márquez to Cortázar, from Sernu to Bolaño, has brought the faces of one Spanish classic writer after another to Chinese readers, from Alexandre to Cabrera Infante, who has brought the representative and strange writers into the public eye. We especially pay tribute to his translation work for "Three Sad Tigers" in 2021, because his dedication has added a strange book of language to the Chinese world and added richer possibilities for the circulation of literature.
Three Sad Tigers
Author: Guillermo Cabrera Invente (Cuba).
Translator: Fan Ye
Edition: Xingsi Culture, Sichuan People's Publishing House
July 2021
General Writing of the Year
"Inside the Matter"
Author: Lan Xiaohuan
Edition: Century Wenjing, Shanghai People's Publishing House
We salute "Staying In The Inside" and pay tribute to its clear presentation of local governments "staying in the matter" in economic development. We also pay tribute to its author, Lan Xiaohuan, for his collation of research in economics and other disciplines, and his professional and easy-to-read writing may become a model for general writing in economics.
Annual Publishing Brand
"Gravity"
Founded in December 2018, guangdong People's Publishing House's social science book brand covers the fields of humanities and social sciences such as history, philosophy, and sociology. The picture shows the cover of some works such as "Chernobyl" and "Ant Society" published by "Gravity" in recent years.
From "Chernobyl" to "Crying Without Tears," gravity focuses on the details behind the history of human suffering and leads us to rethink the revelations of history. From Sympathy Nowhere to Ant Society, Gravity confronts real issues and provides us with a new perspective on human nature and society. From "Erased History" to "Mr. Smith to China", Gravity focuses on the fringe perspective of traditional historical narratives, painting a more complete picture of human history.
Although Gravity was founded less than four years ago, they showed a pioneering vision, focusing on cutting-edge issues in the humanities and social sciences. With a keen sense of problems, a very realistic topic, solid and excellent professional research, and a beautiful and fluent translation, Gravity has published a series of works that are both academic and popular in a short period of time. In an era of "short and fast", we pay tribute to gravity's deep concern for reality, and also to their efforts to communicate between academia and the public.