Category: Books in Translation

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2010 2011 Books in Translation Non Fiction

Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother – Xinran

  Translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman

A million female foetuses are aborted and tens of thousands of baby girls are abandoned every year in China. The desire for a male heir has clashed with the Chinese one-child policy to form a society where the birth of a girl is seen as a disappointment. This book gives the painful story of the mothers who abandoned or murdered their babies.

The book consists of ten short stories, each explaining the circumstances of a different mother. I found the introduction detailing the statistics and background of the Chinese traditions very interesting, but the short stories were a disappointment. The writing contained some scenes that should have been very distressing, but the emotional connection wasn’t there and each story was too short for me to fully understand the implications of keeping the baby girl.

‘What? Isn’t that killing her?’
‘Well, I can’t help it if you must use city folk’s language so, yes, that’s what it was.’
‘And what kinds of methods did you use?’
‘Oh, all sorts! Twisting the umbilical cord round the neck, then as soon as the head came out you could strangle it. If it came out head upwards, you could make it choke on the amniotic fluid, and then the baby couldn’t even take one breath. Or you could put the baby in a basin, hold wet “horse-dung” paper over its face and in a few seconds its legs would stop kicking. And for women who’d never had a baby boy, just girl after girl after girl until the family were fed up with it, it was simple enough to chuck it in the slops pail…

It seemed as though the book was packed with one abandonment/murder after another and the repetitiveness reduced the impact of the message.

It is clearly a difficult and emotive subject, but I think this BBC news report does a better job of getting the seriousness of the situation across. Perhaps my problems with short stories are the main cause of my disappointment with this book? I would have preferred it to focus on one story and to have seen the problems faced by a family that decided to keep their a girl.

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This is the first book by Xinran that I’ve read. Do you think I’d enjoy any of her earlier books?

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Books in Translation Other Other Prizes

The Man Asian Literary Prize

The Man Asian Literary Prize is an annual award given to the best novel by an Asian writer. The book must be available in English, but it doesn’t matter if it was originally written in another language. The winning author is awarded USD 30,000 and the translator (if any) USD 5,000. Earlier this month the 2010 winner was revealed to be Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu

The prize was founded in 2007 and as I’ve read all of the winners I thought it might be interesting to give a brief summary of them.

You can view my full reviews by clicking on the book title.

2010 Winner: Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu 

 

Three Sisters gives an insight into the lives of Chinese women and is especially good at demonstrating the importance of birth order within a family. It is easy to read and packed with details of the Chinese culture. I highly recommend it as an introduction to Chinese literature.

2009 Winner: The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong 

The Boat to Redemption is a coming-of-age story focusing on a boy and his father. It has a slow pace, but the characters are captivating. This novel assumes a knowledge of Chinese culture and mythology and so I do not recommend it to those unfamiliar with the country.

2008 Winner: Illustrado by Miguel Syjuco

Illustrado is set in the Philippines and is a complex novel exposing corruption within the country. It is highly literary and often difficult to follow, but those with the patience to piece together all the clues love it.

2007 Winner: Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong

Wolf Totem is set on the Mongolian grasslands and describes the constant battle that the nomads have with the wolves that live there. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in wolves, but be prepared for some graphic fight scenes.

Note: Illustrado was originally written in English, but all the other winners were translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt.

I love the diversity of this prize. All the books are very different to each other and to the majority of books published in this country. They are all very well written, but before starting you never know whether the book will be gripping and easy to read, or a complex narrative packed with references to myths you’ve never heard of. I look forward to following this prize each year and hope to read more of the books which were shortlisted in previous years.

Do you follow the Man Asian Literary Prize?

Are there any books from the shortlists that I should make a special effort to read?

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2000 - 2007 Books in Translation

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers

 Translated from the German by John Brownjohn

Five words from the blurb:  Bluebear, marvels, myth, satire, entertaining

This book is crazy! It is like walking through a series of the strangest dreams and fantasies that are possible to imagine.

The book begins with a tiny baby blue bear floating on the sea in a walnut shell. Suddenly he feels the shell start to rotate and he is dragged towards a whirlpool. At the last minute he is rescued by Minipirates – exceptional seafarers who try to capture other vessels, but are so small that no-one notices their valiant attempts at piracy. The Minipirates teach Bluebear all about knots and waves, but he grows fast and soon becomes too big for their ship. This leads to Bluebear being abandoned on an island, but as with everything in this book, it isn’t a normal island.

After breakfast I made a regular habit of touring my domain. The island wasn’t very big, only a few hundred yards in diameter, perhaps, but chock-full of minor sensations. The singing flowers learned a new song every day, and I spent hours listening to their silvery voices and watching the butterflies perform their flirtatious aerial ballets. The squirrels, too, were fond of showing off their acrobatic skills. Most of the time one sat perched on my head or shoulder and let me carry it around.

Each section in the book describes one of Bluebear’s lives, so by the end we have witnessed the first 13 1/2 of of his 27 lives. The creatures that Bluebear meets and the situations he encounters are weird, varied and frequently stretch the imagination to breaking point. This could have been a problem for me, but I found it all very entertaining and I loved the fact that anything was possible.

I should probably warn you that this book is almost 700 pages long, but don’t be too daunted – it is illustrated throughout and so is much shorter than it seems.

 

It took me a long time to read this book because I found I needed time to absorb each bizarre new world. By taking it slowly I was rewarded by noticing the deeper meaning behind the words. It all seemed totally mad, but with careful analysis a lot of insight into the human psyche was revealed. It also worked as a fabulous satire of fairy tales and science fiction novels.

If you are willing to try something completely new then I recommend that you give this a try. I’m sure you’ll be charmed by this cute Bluebear!

 

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

The reader is allowed the unique experience of witnessing a character learn to speak, cry, feel fear, and so forth all for the first time.  Adventures in Reading

If you can imagine The Odyssey crossed with Doctor Who then you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this book is like.  Old English Rose Reads

Now this is just brilliant!  Now this is just brilliant! Bogormen

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2010 Books in Translation Novella

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman – Friedrich Christian Delius

  Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

Five words from the blurb: Rome, German, woman, war, daydream

Beside the Sea was one of my favourite reads last year and so I am always keen to try books from Peirene, a wonderful new publisher.

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is set in Rome and follows a young, pregnant German woman as she walks through the city. It is 1943, but the war seems a long way away. She feels safe as she daydreams about her baby, but she slowly realises that her husband isn’t in the same environment. He is in Northern Africa and there is a good possibility that he will not return to see his child.

The book is very unusual in that it is written as a single 125 page sentence. Unfortunately I failed to warm to the writing style and it irritated me throughout the book. I longed for a full stop and thoughts about how nice a chapter break would be began to occupy my mind. The endless sentence gave the book a rambling feel which stretched my tolerance to breaking point. The addition of a few full stops would have done a lot to improve an otherwise beautifully written book.

….in any case it was better to keep quiet, and as a woman it was even more important to restrain oneself, how quickly an idea or thought can escape one’s lips, improvident words could help the enemy, The enemy is listening!, she had learnt, or it might be dangerous on a personal level, there is the weapon of silence and the weapon of words, she had learnt with the League of German Girls, and as she preferred to remain silent anyway, especially if she was not confident of her thoughts and her faint doubts were not assuaged, she knew what she had to do, to trust patiently in God, and continue undeterred along her path,…

With words these profound I think it is important to take the time to pause and reflect, but this was impossible given the structure of the book. My problem with the writing style was quite sad, because some wonderful ideas were buried under the gimmick.

Another problem I had is that nothing actually happens. The entire book consists of one scene in which a woman walks across the city, reflecting on her life.  I’m afraid I like my books to have a plot and so books that give an isolated insight into a woman’s mind do little for me.

I know a lot of people love this book, but it was too experimental for me.

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I seem to be the only one who doesn’t love it:

….my favourite of Peirene’s titles so far, and possibly the most convincing narrative voice I have read for a very long time.  Stuck in a Book

What the author does quite cleverly is to create a mood where time feels suspended. Novel Insights

….a mesmerizing work. Caribousmom

….a meaningful and original glimpse of the mind of one women during the Second World War. Iris on Books

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2010 Books in Translation Other Prizes

Three Sisters – Bi Feiyu

 Winner of 2010 Man Asian Literary Prize

Translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin

Five words from the blurb: sisters, China, power, society, family

Three Sisters gives a fascinating insight into the life of Chinese women in the 1970s. By observing the differences between three sisters we see how the status of their birth position affects everything that happens to them.

The Three Sisters

  • Yumi uses her status as the eldest daughter to gain the respect of all those around her. This power ensures that she easily finds a favourable marriage and so has a far greater chance of achieving a happy life.
  • Yuxiu, the third sister, must use as much charm as possible to negotiate opportunities for herself.
  • Yuyang, the seventh sister, must rely on her talents alone, having none of the power that being an older sibling brings.

The book showed each sister in turn, allowing us to connect to them completely. It did a wonderful job of showing the Chinese culture, particularly by explaining their inner thoughts and fears.  The importance of ‘saving face’ was high on all their agendas and this book was great at explaining their actions in an easy to understand, but vivid way.

….everyone in town knew Yuxiu’s secret. She assumed that no one knew, but they all did. This is generally how private matters are treated. It is as if they are screened by a sheet of paper so flimsy it cannot withstand a simple poke but so sturdy everyone will avoid it. Only country folk are so uncouth and impatient that they need to get to the bottom of things at once. Townsfolk aren’t like that at all. Some things are not meant to be poked open; exposing them spoils the fun. What’s the hurry? You cannot wrap fire in paper; sooner or later it will burn through and everything will be exposed. That is more spectacular, more appealing.

I found the last section to be less interesting than the others, but it was still enjoyable. My only complaint is that the book did not end well. I don’t mean that it was sad, just that it was abrupt and didn’t come to any logical conclusions. I would have liked to see all three sisters mentioned on the final pages, not just a slightly odd scene containing only the youngest. This is a minor quibble though. It is a beautifully written book and I’m sure it will be loved by many people.

As an introduction to Chinese literature, this is an ideal choice. It is well paced and contains a depth of emotion. I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese literature, but I think the focus on family relationships will mean that it will be appreciated by women more than men.

Categories
2010 Books in Translation Science Fiction

The Unit – Ninni Holmqvist

  Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy

If there is a fine line between love and hate then this book is managing to balance on it! I was completely gripped to the text, but everything about the plot frustrated me. I was inwardly groaning as I read each new development, unable to believe what was happening. I am a big fan of dystopian fiction, but the plot was so farcical that it lacked the scary, thought-provoking response that this genre normally delivers.

The Unit is a state-of-the-art facility to which all childless, singles are sent once they fail to be of use to society. If they aren’t in an important job then all females are sent at the age of 50 and men on their 60th birthday. Whilst in the facility they are well looked after, but over time all their organs are harvested and donated to younger members of the population. They are also subjected to scientific experiments; until after a few years they make their final donation….

My main problem was that the whole idea had so many flaws:

  • Why wouldn’t all the single people just find someone to marry? If I knew I could avoid having all my body parts removed one by one then I wouldn’t be that fussy about who I married!
  • Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill them when they reached the specified age instead of paying for all those fancy facilities?
  • Why were they doing research on the people and then using their organs – surely this would damage the tissues and leave them inappropriate for use in others?

I also had major problems with the plot. I could list lots of examples, but the major ones were:

SPOILERS!!!

(highlight to view)

  • Pregnant?!
  • Why did she return after escaping?!

I was almost shouting at the book. I couldn’t believe what was happening!

This book is easy to read and a real page turner. I can’t really fault the controlled, sparse writing and I admit there were a few emotional moments, but I’m afraid the plot wasn’t on my wavelength.

Overall I was so infuriated with this book that I can’t recommend it, but it is a fine line between love and hate…..

The thoughts of other bloggers:

…..a gripping, heart wrenching, thought provoking read. My Friend Amy

…..it will make you think twice about a whole host of issues, and is a natural for book club discussions. Rhapsody in Books

I fall short of adoration with The Unit, but I sure did like it a great deal. Galley Smith

Did anyone else find the plot frustrating?