This year is the 100th anniversary of Proust's death, the reporter learned from CITIC Publishing Dafang that Chinese the world's first independent completion of the new translation project of "Remembering the Watery Years" has been launched, and Kong Qian, a lecturer in the French Department of Nanjing Normal University and winner of the Fu Lei Translation Award Newcomer Award, served as the translator, and successively published the seven-volume Chinese edition of "Remembering the Watery Years" in ten years. "Delivering ten years of life to Proust, to Remembrance of the Watery Years, is the ideal and covenant of life as a French translator." Kong Qian said.
On November 18, 1922, the French writer Marcel Proust, one of the most important pioneers of the new era of modern literature in the 20th century, bid farewell to a world of great change. "The creators of genius works are not people who are amazingly talkative, erudite, and live in the most refined atmosphere, but those who suddenly cease to exist for themselves and turn their personality into a mirror." The immortal masterpiece "Remembrance of the Watery Years", written by him with his life, still has the enlightenment to awaken the world to re-recognize their own existence and reshape the meaning of life a hundred years later.
The first publishing contract of "Remembrance of the Watery Years", exhibited at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Xu Jie/Photo
From 1989 to 1991, Yilin Publishing House gathered the efforts of 13 top French translators in China at that time to launch the first complete translation of "Remembrance of the Watery Years", which is also the only complete translation in China. Since then, two translators, Zhou Kexi, Xu and Jin, have contributed two sets of unfinished translations (three and four volumes), but no other translations have appeared. Neighboring Japan and South Korea have each published five or six complete translations of "Remembrance of the Watery Years".
Seven Star Library Edition of "Remembrance of the Watery Years" Annotated Edition (French Version) Zhang Shu/Photo
In France, the annotated edition of the "Seven Star Library" published by Gallimar Press from 1987 to 1989 was compiled on the basis of manuscripts, typescripts, proofs and some important unpublished manuscripts of Proust, and presented the results of a hundred years of Proust research in rich and detailed annotations, forming an authoritative version recognized as the most scholarly value. The "Proust Project", established in 2020, starts with the highlight of "Reminiscing Like a Watery Year" - the introduction of Gallimard's "Seven Star Library" annotated version as the base, which is completed by a new generation of excellent translators in China.
"Remembrance of the Watery Years" is regarded as one of the most difficult classic literary works to read, and there is a saying that "life is too short, Proust is too long". The complete translation of the book has more than 2.4 million words and nearly 3,000 pages. In November last year, CITIC Publishing Group reached a cooperation agreement with Gallimar Publishing House in France on the "Proust Project", and obtained the exclusive copyright of the annotated edition of "Remembering the Watery Years" of "Seven Star Library".
The last page of the manuscript of "Remembrance of the Watery Years"
In order to ensure the quality and academic standard of the Proust Project, especially the new translation of "Remembrance of the Watery Years", four scholars and translators, including Xu Jun, Yu Zhongxian, Dong Qiang and Yuan Xiaoyi, will form an "academic advisory group" to "escort" young translators. The project is also supported by Jean-Yves Tatier, a French Verlag Gallima publishing house and a French Proust research expert and editor-in-chief of the "Seven Star Library" edition of "In Memory of the Watery Years", and Tatier will provide academic guidance in subsequent publications. Editor and French translator Zhang Yinhong served as the responsible editor, providing professional assistance for Kong Qian's translation, and domestic graphic designer and winner of "China's Most Beautiful Book" Sun Xiaoxi was responsible for the project's visual and book design.
From the 15th to the 18th, CITIC Publishing Generously invited translators, scholars, writers, critics and other domestic Proust professional readers to launch three consecutive nights of video programs and a podcast series reading activity, inviting readers to enter the world of Proust.
The "Proust Project" is not only a heavyweight translation project, but also a literary cross-border operation. In the next ten years, along with the publication of the new translation of "Remembrance of the Watery Years" volume by volume, there are other works in the "Seven Star Library" edition of the "Proust Complete Works", and the "Proust Letters Collection" will also be translated and published one after another. The publisher will plan a series of activities such as "International Proust Seminar", "International Symposium on Translation and Communication of "Reminiscence of the Watery Years", as well as "Proust Theme Cross-border Art Exhibition", "Public Reading Proust in the Internet Age", "World Writers Talk about Proust", "Remembering the Watery Years in the Minds of Global Readers" and other activities at different times, hoping to turn reading and research Proust into a literary cross-border action that meets the time, and provide new possibilities for touching and inspiring contemporary Chinese literature.
Image source: Publisher
Editor: Xu Yang