Ethnic ChinaLit

Une terre de lait et de miel, Stéphane Lévêque’s rendering of Fan Wen’s Shuǐ Rǔ dàdì (水乳大地, 范稳著), will be available for purchase in French bookstores and online beginning March 28.

Shui Ru Dadi tells the tale of a multi-ethnic settlement in Lancangjiang Canyon—gateway to Tibet—beset by battles between arrogant French Catholic missionaries, incompetent Han officials and their marauding troops, Naxi Dongba Shamanists, and the dominant Tibetans, not all of whom lead pacific, vegetarian lives in the local lamasery.

The saga spans most of the 20th century, hopping back and forth between the decades and capturing the non-linear Tibetan sense of time. Fan Wen’s imagination almost seems to get the better of him as Living Buddhas levitate, Shamans summon spirits for battle, and Communist Party officials rue their Red Guard days, but his tale is firmly rooted in the locale’s colorful history. Historical fiction with dabs of highly entertaining “supernatural realism” thrown in, if you like.

Related links:

• An interview with author Fan Wen
• An interview with translator Stéphane Lévêque
• English excerpt from the last part in the trilogy, Canticle to the Land (大地雅歌)

Ethnic ChinaLit has learned that the first volume of Fan Wen’s trilogy, <水乳大地> (Shuǐ rǔ dàdì, or literally, Terre de lait et de miel), is likely to be in print in French by January 2013. Translator Stéphane Lévêque has just completed his translation that will be published by Philippe Picquier. Its Cover Page will feature the mention Ouvrage traduit avec le concours du Centre National du Livre, indicating that the publication of the book was subsidized by the respected CNL after strict vetting of translation quality.

As I noted in my earlier piece on the three-volume saga set at the gateway to Tibet in Southwest China (On the Other Side):

The trilogy spans most of the 20th century, hopping back and forth between the decades and capturing the non-linear Tibetan sense of time. Fan’s imagination almost seems to get the better of him as Living Buddhas levitate and Shamans summon spirits to do battle, but the stories are firmly rooted in the locale’s colorful history. Historical fiction with dabs of highly entertaining “supernatural realism” thrown in, if you like.

The opening novel, Shuǐ rǔ dàdì recounts the tale of a multi-ethnic settlement in Lancangjiang Canyon (gateway to Tibet), beset by battles between arrogant French Catholic missionaries, incompetent officials and their marauding troops, Naxi Dongba Shamanists, and the dominant Tibetans, not all of whom lead pacific, vegetarian lives in the local lamasery.

How does the translator “place”  Shuǐ rǔ dàdì in contemporary Chinese literature as a whole?  Opines Lévêque (Translator Interview):

Pour moi, c’est une œuvre nécessaire parce qu’elle offre sur la question tibétaine et le peuple Naxi un regard très respectueux . . .Fan Wen aime le Tibet, il aime aller à la rencontre des autres, il est curieux des êtres et cela se sent dans tout le roman. Je ne sais comment qualifier «Shuǐ rǔ dàdì » dans le contexte de la littérature chinoise contemporaine, mais il me semble que l’intérêt de ce roman réside en sa subtile évocation d’un monde magique, loin du béton et de l’appât de l’argent. Il y a une dimension spirituelle que je trouve fascinante, même si je me sens très éloigné de cette civilisation. Fan Wen pose un regard humaniste et poétique sur l’humain. En cela, il est le digne descendant d’une certaine tradition chinoise.

See Canticle to the Land for background on Fan Wen, his worldwide agent and a translated excerpt.

Writes author Pedro Ceinos Arcones in his introduction to this new work on the Naxi, renowned for their Dongba pictographic language:

Every year thousands of travelers from all around the world visit the Naxi region [of Yunnan], turning their former isolation into a permanent exhibition of their land and homes. During their stay in Lijiang they come into contact with some of the most outstanding characteristics of Naxi culture: Dongba pictographs, Old City traditional architecture, Alili popular dance, ethnic clothes, Baisha mural paintings, Dongjing music, etc., but unfortunately these dispersed manifestations of the Naxi culture fail to provide an overall understanding of the Naxi people, remaining instead as touristic activities without a link to the soul of the people who created them, and part of whose spiritual world they are.

This first and sudden contact with the Naxi culture arouses the interest of many travelers that unfortunately cannot find any materials with which to satiate their thirst. This book was written to fill this void. Blending the most interesting Chinese and western academic materials in an easily readable and understandable guide to Naxi culture and history, we want to let the outside world understand the human environment of Lijiang, to help travelers fully enjoy their visit to the lands of the Naxi, and to provide our readers with a permanent emotional link to one of the most fascinating ethnic groups on Earth: The Naxi.

The Sons of Heaven, Brothers of Nature: The Naxi of Southwest China is available here on Amazon. Read a review by Duncan Poupard at the Naxi Script Resource Center. To contact the author, e-mail him at peceinos (at) hotmail.com

And here is the Table of Contents: Read the rest of this entry »

This new blog is hosted by Duncan Poupard, who studied Chinese and Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and has studied the Naxi pictographic script at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (Lijiang). His mission:

This site is designed to be an accessible, one-stop resource and blog for those who wish to learn more about the Naxi Dongba script and the culture of Lijiang (丽江), in China’s Yunnan province.

The first problem for the average Western enthusiast is this: about 98% of all material related to the scripts is in Chinese.  Even the huge research project undertaken by the Dongba Culture Research Institute that translated a large chunk of the Dongba scriptures was conducted in Chinese, save for a few poorly translated abstracts. This is a great shame, especially when you keep in mind that it was in fact a western scholar/explorer, Joseph Rock, who opened the door to Naxi studies.

The second problem is that unlike more popular scripts, such as Chinese and Tibetan, there are virtually no online resources to aid in the study of the Naxi Dongba script.

These humble pages are an attempt to redress the balance, to provide the English-speaking enthusiast and interested reader with a collection of study aids, book reviews, articles and other items of interest that will hopefully help them to get to grips with this most fascinating of scripts.

The last novel in Fan Wen’s Yunnan-Tibetan trilogy, Canticle to the Land (大地雅歌), has been designated as one of the top ten Chinese books published in 2010 by China Reading Weekly (中华读书报), an influential B2B publication serving China’s publishing industry.

To learn more about this novel, visit:

• The Creation Story: An English-language excerpt from Canticle to the Land
• On the Other Side: The story behind the novel
• Fan Wen’s New Work: Culture Clash on the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway
• The Grayhawk Agency, global rights agent for Canticle to the Land
• Interview with Stéphane Lévêque, French translator of the first book in the trilogy, Harmonious Land (水乳大地)

The audience erupted in laughter in Chieftain Khampu Dzongsar’s spacious salon.“You sang that wrong,” uttered someone to Tashi Gyatso, the troubadour. “Those last two lines were added on by you!” Read the rest of this entry »

As those knowledgeable about Chinese literature in translation may have noted, one occasionally finds European publishers—particularly in France—are willing to translate and publish Chinese fiction long before these “unknown” authors are “discovered” by the English-speaking world. Chinese Books, English Reviews spoke recently with Stéphane Lévêque, who is busy translating Harmonious Land (水乳大地) into French, the first novel—not yet available in English—in a now-complete trilogy by author Fan Wen (范稳) set along the borders of Yunnan and Tibet:

Vous avez été choisi pour traduire «Harmonious Land » (水乳大地) en français, et le roman sera publié par Philippe Picquier. Vous avez déjà traduit pas mal de livres du chinois, par exemple, «Le Chant des regrets éternels »  (长恨歌) de Wang Anyi (王安忆), ainsi que quelques livres de Jimmy Liao (几米).  Est-ce correct?

Pour être plus précis, j’ai traduit quelques textes de Yu Dafu (郁达夫), y compris « Rivière d’automne », la biographie de Jin Xing (金星), une danseuse transsexuelle anciennement colonel dans l’APL, et deux romans de Wang Anyi, «Amour sur une colline dénudée » (荒山之恋) et « Le Chant des regrets éternels » (co-traduit avec Yvonne André). J’ai aussi traduit quelques livres pour enfants chez Picquier dans la série « Táoqì bāo mǎ xiǎo tiào xìliè » (淘气包马小跳系列) de Yang Hongying (杨红樱), et enfin plusieurs albums de Jimmy Liao que j’adore pour les éditions Bayard. Read the rest of this entry »

Shuiru Dadi tells the tale of a multi-ethnic settlement in Lancangjiang Canyon—Gateway to Tibet—beset by battles between arrogant French Catholic missionaries, incompetent Han officials and their marauding troops, Naxi Dongba Shamanists, and the dominant Tibetans, not all of whom lead pacific, vegetarian lives in the local lamasery.

The saga spans most of the 20th century, hopping back and forth between the decades and capturing the non-linear Tibetan sense of time. Fan Wen’s imagination almost seems to get the better of him as Living Buddhas levitate, Shamans summon spirits for battle, and Communist Party officials rue their Red Guard days, but his tale is firmly rooted in the locale’s colorful history. Historical fiction with dabs of highly entertaining “supernatural realism” thrown in, if you like. 

Below, Chinese Books, English Reviews interviews Fan Wen (范稳), author of Shuiru Dadi (水乳大地). Nominated for the 2008 Maodun Literature Prize, the novel has sold nearly 50,000 copies in China, and Éditions Gallimard has acquired the rights to the French version. Stéphane Lévêque, who rendered Wang Anyi’s Song of Everlasting Sorrow (长恨歌) into French, has been chosen to translate Shuiru Dadi.  The rights to the English version are still open to negotiation. Read the rest of this entry »