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According to the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Ye Tingfang, a translator and kafka research expert, died in Beijing at the age of 85 due to illness at 6 o'clock today. The farewell ceremony will be held at 10:00 a.m. on September 29 in the farewell room of Beijing Hospital.
Ye Tingfang was born in 1936 in a remote mountain village in Xiakou Township, Qu County (now Zhuxi County), Zhejiang Province, and her ancestors have been farmers for generations. The third oldest in the family, he accidentally fell at the age of 9 and lost his left arm. Ye Tingfang dropped out of school several times due to her disability, and was later admitted to peking university with twists and turns, majoring in German in the Department of Spanish. Peking University's Spanish language department is the cradle of Chinese translators. It was from here that Ye Yanfang began his exploration of more than forty years of german literature research. In the 1950s, Peking University's Spanish language department was full of famous scholars, and only Ye Tingfang's German major was taught by first-class scholars in China such as Feng Zhi, Zhu Guangqian, and Tian Dewang. Feng Zhi taught the history of German literature, and Zhu Guangqian taught the history of Western aesthetics, and the words and deeds of these scholars had a subtle impact on Ye Tingfang's later research on German literature.
After graduating from the Department of Spanish Languages at Peking University in 1961, Ye Tingfang first stayed on as a teacher, then followed the poet Feng Zhi to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and became a German translator at the Institute of Foreign Literature of the academy. He is also the editor of the magazine "World Literature" at the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the director and researcher of the Nordic Literature Department of the Institute of Foreign Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
When it comes to Ye Tingfang, people will always contact Kafka, in a sense, Ye Tingfang is the first person to "overturn" Kafka in China.
In 1977, by chance, Ye Tingfang went to a Chinese bookstore to look for old books, and found a copy of The Kafka Anthology from East Germany from a pile of books in foreign languages to be dealt with, which contained two of Kafka's novels and several short stories. This "encounter" with Kafka made Ye Tingfang begin to enter Kafka's art world.
At the end of the 1970s, society gradually opened up, and the intellectual circles were also "breaking the ban", and Ye Tingfang's "World Literature" magazine at that time began to "break the ban" from the so-called decadent writers such as Kafka. At that time, the translator Li Wenjun first translated the Metamorphosis from the English version, and he and his wife Li Peifen (Hesse translator), who was also a translator, advocated that Ye Tingfang should introduce Kafka, so Ye Tingfang rushed to write a commentary of more than 10,000 words, "Kafka and His Works", affirming Kafka for the first time. The paper was published along with Li Wenjun's translation in the first issue of World Literature in 1979, which had just reopened.
At first, Ye Tingfang still used a pseudonym, and slowly found that it was okay to publish it, so he began to write more research articles and wrote related monographs, which caused great repercussions in the literary and art circles. Feng Zhi commented at the time that Ye Tingfang had sorted out the creations of an extremely complex writer like Kafka in such a short period of time, which was indeed invaluable. In addition, Ye Tingfang also translated and introduced playwright DürrenMatt's "Old Woman Returns Home" and "Physicist" and other famous works, introducing tragicomedy theory and paradox aesthetics into the Chinese theater industry.
In a media interview, Ye Tingfang said of Kafka's influence on himself, "Kafka himself is good at thinking, has his own thinking about the problem of "alienation", and cares about the future of mankind, the problem of survival, and the crisis of the world." His critique is not based on morality, but from concern about the common destiny of mankind. Kafka's influence on me was mainly in the crisis of modern civilization. This kind of worry is not only concerned with economic development, but also at the kind of "alienation" that is not transferred by human will, and modern society is getting farther and farther away from people's wishes. Anxiety about the fundamental human condition is far stronger than shallow optimism. The same was true of Kafka, who constantly critiqued the world and himself. One must combine these two points. Otherwise, criticizing the world would not be objective. ”
Ye Tingfang's one-armed force has hindered her study many times. In 1981, a German research institute sent a letter to the Institute of Foreign Languages inviting Ye Tingfang to go to China for academic exchanges, but he was hindered by one arm. Qian Zhongshu was indignant: "When Pan Guangdan walked all over the world on one leg, now Ye Tingfang can't go abroad with one hand?" " 。
In addition to literary issues, Ye Tingfang has also maintained a high degree of attention to many social issues. At the end of the 20th century, some people proposed to rebuild the Yuanmingyuan to restore the glory of the former gardening art. After learning about it, Ye Tingfang said that "rebuilding the Yuanmingyuan": in essence, it is "weak country psychology". To this end, he wrote the book "The Beauty of Ruins", hoping to promote the awakening of the cultural consciousness of the Chinese people in the protection of cultural relics and ruins. As a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Ye Tingfang also made suggestions on the protection of ancient villages and the schooling of peasant children at the two sessions, especially playing an important role in the implementation of the "two-child" policy. He considered himself a qualified citizen first and a scholar second.
Resources:
"Ye Tingfang: Writing Life With One Hand" Guangming Daily
https://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2020-07/15/nw.D110000gmrb_20200715_2-13.htm
"Progress in Introspection and Openness: An Interview with Ye Tingfang," China Reform, No. 9, 2012
http://culture.caixin.com/2012-09-02/100433664.html
Interview with Ye Tingfang
https://www.douban.com/note/235954959/?dt_dapp=1&dt_platform=com.douban.activity.wechat_friends
Ye Tingfang on "Rebuilding the Yuanmingyuan": In essence, it is "weak country psychology" and "new knowledge of chinese studies"
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/23917182/?dt_dapp=1&dt_platform=com.douban.activity.wechat_friends