Shanghai story overseas "circle fans", with literary reflection to present the city's rich expressions

At the beginning of the new year, the Japanese translation of Shanghai writer Jin Yucheng's novel and Mao Dun's award-winning work "Blossoms" was released in two volumes by hayakawa Study, which introduced Liu Cixin's "Three-Body Problem", which aroused a warm response from Japanese critics; the English version of the short story collection "Shanghai Story", which gathered the works of ten contemporary Shanghai writers such as Wang Anyi and Teng Xiaolan, showed the steaming daily life of Shanghainese people and presented the urban cultural landscape outside the skyscrapers for overseas readers; Chen Danyan's "The Bund: Images and Legends" German version, "Shanghai Story" The English edition of "Becoming a Peace Hotel" tells the world about Shanghai's "architecture can be read"; "Shanghai Chronicle: The Perspective of Social Space" and "Flowers on the Sea: The Daily Life of Women in Shanghai Workers' New Village" and other plans to introduce foreign languages, but also from another side to build a history of urban life memory...

If there are N ways to tell the story of a city, then the literary expression based on writing Shanghai can be said to be a personalized "city manuscript" that conveys multiple observation perspectives. As more books pour into international mainstream publishing channels and appear on global bookshelves, Shanghai's historical heritage and stories of the times are crossing cultural barriers and building a relatively complete information and emotional field, helping overseas readers to understand Shanghai more comprehensively. As a result, the more sensual and multi-faceted contemporary Chinese urban "personality", richer and more vivid urban expressions, transmitted to the world through dense texts and professional translations, has also become a vivid footnote to Shanghai's urban soft power.

The diversified writing is interwoven into a colorful puzzle of the city, conveying the charm of Haipai culture

"Shanghai" is an influential Chinese urban symbol in Japan, but the relevant literary works are rarely translated, and the Japanese version of "Blossoms" undoubtedly fills the gap. Depicting Shanghai from the 1960s to the 1990s, the novel fully draws on and absorbs the advantages of the novel, shows the city's historical memory and cultural background, and interweaves the city's colorful puzzles. Peng Lun, a senior publisher and international copyright agent, told reporters that in addition to the novel itself as a phenomenon-level work and the director Wong Kar-wai filming the film and television drama of the same name "extra points", "Blossoms" bloomed in many places, which is inseparable from professional and effective overseas copyright operations, close communication between Japanese translators and writers, and other factors. "On the whole, the challenge of 'going out' at present is that writers not only need good translators, but also pay attention to whether the foreign publishing houses that publish their works are professional and influential, and whether their foreign editors really appreciate the quality of their works and are willing to go all out for it."

Luckily, Blossoms met the right soil. The translator of the Japanese version of "Blossoms" is a professor at osaka University of Economics' department of Chinese, and during his master's degree, he studied the writer Xiao Hong's "Ma Bole", which led to a strong interest in Shanghai's culture. She has also translated the short story "The White Horse in the Alley" by Shanghai writer Wang Anyi and The Horse Language by Jin Yucheng, describing "Shanghai as the spiritual hometown in my heart". In the face of such a long Shanghainese novel with a unique language style and distinct regional colors, she said bluntly that dialect is indeed the biggest difficulty of translation, but it is also the "key" to understanding Shanghai culture. Uramoto Ishiwa is determined to present the Shanghainese part in Kansai dialect – Kansai is more undulating than standard Japanese, a bit like the melody of a song, and sounds more intimate and interesting.

In the observation of Jia Haitao, a researcher of speech society at Hitotsubashi University in Japan, the reason why Japanese publishers are interested in "Blossoms" is inseparable from the theme of "Shanghai". "The japanese translation of "Blossoms" came out with the help of the Japanese translation of Chinese literature." As a publishing house with a fairly mature market operation, Hayakawa Shobo also highlights shanghai elements in book binding, promotion and distribution - cathay cinema on the cover, Shanghai street scene, exuding a strong taste of Shanghai pie. In addition, the Vietnamese version of "Blossoms" was published by the Vietnamese Writers Publishing House, and after the listing, there was no large-scale publicity due to the epidemic, but it still attracted the attention of the academic community, and many graduate students also took this book as the subject of their graduation thesis, reflecting the growing overseas interest in Reading in Shanghai.

Show the world the spiritual outlook of shanghai strivers and revolutionaries fighting against the epidemic, and pay tribute to the "people" who add color to the city

"The openness and inclusiveness of the city of Shanghai has made it often a source of literary exploration." As Jin Li, a professor at fudan university's department of Chinese, said in the preface to the English edition of Shanghai Story, "If this book is compared to a map of urban literature, we hope that this map is complete, not only indicating well-known urban landmarks, but also leading you deep into the inner and corners of the city's hidden abdominal cavity, showing the joys and sorrows of Shanghainese people lurking in the gaps of daily life." ”

In the torrent of life, it is just an ordinary but not ordinary strivers, revolutionaries, and anti-epidemic people, who continue to add color to the city. The English edition of Shanghai Story, published by comma press in the United Kingdom, focuses on delicately expressing the jagged forms of urban life and the spiritual characteristics of different individuals. Among them, Wang An recalled "Ah Fang's Lamp", Ah Fang and his wife who came to Shanghai to work wholesale fruits from the sixteen shops wharf, condensing the group portraits of laborers; Teng Xiaolan's "Woman Dancing Under the Starry Sky" has short worries and shackles in the parents of Shanghai Lane; after 90, the new Wang Zhanhei "The Story of Amin" will turn their attention to the aging group, and the Shanghai grandmas and uncles meet between the lines... In this way, the whole book captures the rich expression of Shanghai and gives the urban landscape a vivid "body feeling".

Since the epidemic, the "Diary of Dr. Cha Aiding Hubei", which has continued to brush the screen, completely records the 68-day anti-epidemic experience of the first batch of medical teams in Shanghai, and its English and Japanese versions have also made "DR. The name "Zha" has entered the hearts of more readers around the world. American readers Patricia Eltinge and Greg Jones used high-frequency words such as "Highly rec ommended!" (highly recommended) and "Very inspirational!" in their comments to describe their after-reading feelings. Zhao Binwei, vice president of the Humanities Branch of Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, said that Iwanami Bookstore, Japan's most prestigious publishing institution, has introduced book copyright from China for the first time in many years, and the Japanese version of the book has entered the circulation channels of local publishing owners, and has been displayed in many mainstream physical bookstores and university libraries in Japan, bringing China's anti-epidemic spirit to more Japanese professionals and ordinary people. Kohiko Maba, former editor-in-chief of Iwanami Bookstore, said that "The Diary of Dr. Cha Aiding E" tells the voice of the Chinese people in fighting the epidemic, and also presents a song of support for people all over the world.

Red culture is also a distinctive background of Shanghai, writer He Jianming documentary literature "Revolutionaries" praises revolutionary martyrs in Shanghai and other places, after the Russian version of the book was published and listed, the audio book was broadcast on St. Petersburg Radio last year, so that more Russian readers understand why the Chinese Communist Party was born in Shanghai and where the spiritual source lies. The English version of "Revolutionary" currently covers the mainstream sales channels in North America, Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia, including Amazon's global sales network, Barnes & Bros. Bookstore in the United States, etc.; the Spanish version is also in translation and is expected to be published this year.

Xiao Bai's "Blockade" focuses on Shanghai during the isolated island period, and in the face of the Japanese round-up, the Mandarin Duck Butterfly School novelists finally completed the explosion in an earth-shattering way. Xiao Bai described Shanghai as "a city that has always grown", and the trivialities of daily life collide with sudden dramatic moments, creating an urban legend. "Although the place where a certain story takes place may not be in Shanghai, the story still has a Shanghainese temperament, because Shanghai believes in opportunity, and the people in this city follow the timeline of daily life while looking forward to the arrival of dramatic moments, believing that they can change their lives and make history."

Author: Xu Yang

Editor: Zhou Minxian

Editor-in-Charge: Xiaofang Xing

*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.