【NO.4】English translation of "Water Margin" illustration! Not a Chinese novel character drawn by a Chinese, see if there is a little meaning to it?
Pearl Buck was the first Western writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for her depiction of China, and she is a great admirer of Chinese literature, especially Chinese novels. Among all the classical Chinese novels, Pearl Sai's favorite and most admired is "Water Margin". From 1927 to 1932, she spent four full years translating the full text of The Water Margin (71 editions), which was the earliest complete English translation. The translation was published simultaneously in New York in 1933 and London, England, under the title All Men Are Brothers, and became popular in Europe and the United States.
Pearl Sai chose the 71st edition, not because it was the shortest edition, but because she believed that the 71st edition represented the true spirit of "Water Margin": "These chapters were written by one person, and the later chapters in the other editions were added by others, mainly about their failures and being caught by the government, obviously in order to remove the novel from revolutionary literature and end the book with a meaning that suits the ruling class." She believes that such a version has lost the "spirit and vibrancy of the theme and style" of the seventy-one editions.
#Record My 2024##Record My Life##Headline Life After 70s##Water Margin##Pearl Race##Illustration##有点意思#
