The last English translation of Jin Yong's wuxia novel "The Legend of the Archery Hero", "A Heart Divided", was released on March 25, and by this time, the "Legend of the Archery Hero" has been fully translated into English.
As a novel of nearly one million words, "The Legend of the Archery Hero" took nearly a decade from the copyright output to the translation of the entire book and published. The English translation is also published in four volumes, the first three being "A Hero Born" (2018), "A Bone Undone" (2019) and "A Snake Lies Waiting" (2020), while the last volume, "A Heart Divided", tells the story of Guo Jing, the hero, who finally had to face the "spiritual dilemma" of leading troops to attack his homeland.
In this huge translation project, the Swedish translator Anna Holmwood (Chinese Hao Yuqing) is mainly responsible for the translation of the first and third volumes, while the Chinese translator Zhang Jing is Anna's main collaborator, responsible for translating the second and fourth volumes. In a recent interview with a Beiqing-Beijing headline reporter, Zhang Jing revealed that the other two parts of Jin Yong's "Archery Trilogy" ("Divine Eagle Hero" and "Yitian Slaughtering Dragon") have also been bought by the British McCleaus Publishing House for translation rights, and she has now begun the translation of "Divine Eagle Hero", "The English translation of "Eagle Hero" will also be divided into four volumes like "The Legend of the Eagle Hero", and one volume will be launched every year.
Zhang Jing Courtesy of the interviewee
He has been friends for many years with another translator, Anna
Zhang Jing grew up in Hong Kong, and the idea of working as a translator first stemmed from her love of theatre. "During the six years I lived in england, I can say that I was a theater ticket holder, but after watching hundreds of plays in the Uk, there was not a single Chinese story." Zhang Jing said that the theater has a repertoire of Japanese, Indian and even Spanish languages that have been translated into English and performed in the theater, but there is no translation of works from Chinese, and she has the idea of translating Chinese literature and art to the world.
So, when Anna invited her to translate Jin Yong's works together, Zhang Jing gladly accepted. During the translation process, they communicate every day. "It's all the same novel that the reader is reading, so the fluency and coherence of the writing style are very important. When we cooperate in translation, we must trust each other and get along honestly," Zhang Jing said, "We have known each other for more than ten years, and we have also cooperated in translating some short stories before, and the most original manuscripts are read by each other, and many of them have not even been read by editors." They also "catch worms" for each other's manuscripts, find problems, and discuss them together.
Translator Anna Homewood in the study of her home in Sweden courtesy of the interviewee
Use "lens sense" to let English readers experience the "taste" of Chinese martial arts
Zhang Jing uses cooking as a metaphor for the translation of "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter", "It's like a Chinese fried noodle, now we have to use Western food ingredients to restore its taste as much as possible." Some of the "ingredients" are universal, such as love and fighting, but some are completely different. How to let English readers taste the same martial arts "taste" is what Zhang Jing thinks about the most.
As a martial arts novel, if the fight scene is not wonderful and smooth, it will naturally lose a lot of charm and reading experience, and Zhang Jing chooses to use film and television culture as the entry point for translation. "Although many Westerners are very unfamiliar with martial arts novels, they have more or less seen some martial arts movies," Zhang Jing told reporters, "such as Bruce Lee's movies, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragons, etc. We also hope to use the rhythm of English itself to express the style of writing to the film and television feeling." ”
Zhang Jing believes that Mr. Jin Yong uses a lens-like description when writing, so when translating, they also use fast and slow words in English to create a fast and slow rhythm during a fight. For example, when launching a dark weapon, the slower one can be translated as "sail through the air", the drifting one is "drift through the air", the fast and fierce can be translated as "shot through the air", and the fast shooting but somewhat out of control can be used as "hurtle through the air", or even "whizz through the air".
The English version of "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter" (right) is sold in a London bookstore Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Dailei /photo
Learn Tai Chi to understand Jin Yong's martial arts moves
In order to be able to translate Mr. Jin Yong's wonderful and lively fight scenes, Zhang Jing specially went to learn tai chi, and has been practicing for several years now. Zhang Jing told reporters that after learning Tai Chi, she had a more specific understanding of the description of martial arts moves, "such as 'needle in a haystack', the moves with the word 'fishing' are mostly attacking the downward plate, while 'pushing the window and looking at the moon' is to hit upwards." With the foundation of tai chi, Zhang Jing's cognition and imagination of the fight scene are also more specific - how the characters punch, where to hook their hands, how the hands and feet are intertwined, what kind of effect will be and so on. In order to make the English reader imagine, Zhang Jing will also add some details when translating. "We must describe the scene as completely exciting, but we must not drag the mud and water, and write too much," she laughed, "after all, the characters in the book are flying around in the sky with light utility, and our translator's words cannot crawl around on the ground." ”
For Chinese readers, the martial arts world described by Jin Yong is very familiar, but for English readers with completely different cultural backgrounds, many plots are strange and difficult to understand. For example, Yang Kang won Mu Nianci in a contest to recruit relatives, and publicly hugged her and took off her embroidered shoes, so Mu Nianci secretly agreed to Yang Kangfang and wanted to marry him. Traditional concepts such as "men and women are not intimate" and "incivility should not be regarded" that Are well known to Chinese readers are difficult for Western readers to understand, which Zhang Jing did not expect when she began to translate. In order to facilitate the reader's understanding, the English translation explains the wars and entanglements between the Song, Liao, and Jin in the introduction, and also makes written notes on historical events and the concepts unique to Chinese culture.
After publication, the praise was repeated, and English readers looked forward to "The Condor Man"
For the English translation of "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter", the British Guardian compares it to China's "Lord of the Rings" and "Game of Thrones". Since the publication of the first volume in 2018, the English translation of "The Legend of the Eagle Shooter" has been well received by many English readers, many of whom said that they "read it in one breath". In this regard, Zhang Jing said that allowing English readers to experience the happiness of Chinese readers when reading Jin Yong's novels is the greatest affirmation for translators.
On amazon in the UK, 73% of readers gave the first volume of "a hero born" a five-star praise; the last volume of the new "a heart divided" launched on March 25 this year has also been given five-star praise by readers, saying that "I have read it in a few days, looking forward to "Eagle Man"!" ”
Text/Beiqing - Beijing Headline Intern Wang Runqi
Editor/Cui Wei