Luedi Kong gives Monkey King epic the German treatment
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E-mail China Daily, November 9, 2016
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| Eva Luedi Kong has launched her German version of Journey to the West. The book also features illustrations restored by Zhang Xiaofeng, a professor of woodcut paintings at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. [Photo / China Daily] |
The book also features illustrations restored by Zhang Xiaofeng, a professor of woodcut paintings at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province.
"I think publishing this translation could be a milestone for classical Chinese fiction in German-speaking countries," says Meier, adding that he is contacting translators for other Chinese books.
Meier says Luedi Kong is an excellent translator and he knows how long and tough the journey was for her to translate typical Chinese thoughts and ideology, blended with Buddhism and Taoism, into a German context.
Born in 1968, Luedi Kong studied Sinology at the University of Zurich. Then, in 1990, she moved to Hangzhou, where she attended the China Academy of Art.
Later, she was a lecturer at both the academy and at Zhejiang University, and a freelance translator.
Her previous book Typo China, is a poster collection she worked on with the Zurich Museum of Design.
Before she began to work on her latest book, she got herself a Master's degree in classic Chinese literature from Zhejiang University. "And to refine my German writing, when I was translating, I studied 18th and 19th century German literature at the same time, and got great help with my poetic rhetoric from Goethe's writing," she says.
"The most difficult part comes with first the Buddhist references and then Taoist thoughts. I felt obliged to understand them before I began translating, so I read, researched and met relevant experts, and even went to see monks," she says.
"The notions and concepts have to be clearly explained and translated, not avoided, or worse, deleted or omitted, simply because they are difficult to understand," she says.
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