After living in China for 15 years, American Eric Abrahamsen is returning to his hometown, Seattle, late this year. He is the founder of Paper Republic, a company devoted to translating Chinese literature and introducing it to the West.
He plans to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair in October to seek partnerships for publishing Chinese books in other languages.
“In the US we will do the same thing we’ve been doing here – bridging the cultural communication between the two sides,” he says at his office in Beijing’s Dashilan district.
Abrahamsen founded the Paper Republic website in 2007, inviting other people who were learning Mandarin to discuss the books they’d read and translated. In 2011 Paper Republic started to do its own translations, and in the past two years the business has grown.
At first Abrahamsen found it difficult persuading foreign publishers to buy Chinese books. “They didn’t know good books and writers in China,” he says. “They thought it was risky buying Chinese books because, compared with books written at home, they’d have to pay extra for translation and spend more time getting the books out.”
So he developed other ways to provide information about Chinese books and writers. His role has gradually changed from translator to consultant, and his promotions have included “Northern Girls” by Sheng Keyi, which Penguin published in June. He translated sample chapters and wrote the introduction.
“I love the novel,” he says.” The language is very vivid, full of vitality. I love the way the story’s told and how the writer deals with the power that sex has on a girl, which I’ve not seen in other Chinese writers’ work.”
Abrahamsen also was involved in promoting “The Three-body Problem” by Liu Cixin, but decided not to translate it into English because it’s too long. The third book in the trilogy, “Death’s End”, is coming out soon.
Other successful promotions include Ge Fei’s “The Invisibility Cloak”, due in October, and Jia Pingwa’s “Happy”.
Abrahamsen speaks fluent Mandarin with barely an accent. Knowledgeable in both Chinese and Western literature, he’s often invited to translate and interpret for cultural exchanges, such as last year’s dialogue between Irish writer Colm Toibin and Chinese writers in Beijing.
Abrahamsen first visited China at age 10 and still has fond memories of that trip. Ten years later he toured the country’s west, eager to master the language. He majored in international relations at Washington State University because “I wanted to go abroad. But later I found there was no need to study international relations to go abroad – you just buy a plane ticket! I wanted to go to China to study Chinese, so I joined in a programme between our university and Minzu University in Beijing.”
Since 2001 he’s been living in the capital. Early on he tried freelance writing but became frustrated by the uncertainty. Instead he put his hopes in Chinese literature.
After four years of study he could read simple articles in Mandarin, and was eventually able to grasp – and fall in love with – the novels of Wang Xiaobo.
“He was deeply influenced by Western literature, judging from his language, sense of humour and thoughts,” Abrahamsen says. “Western readers can easily understand him – it feels familiar. He’s not only a good writer but also a very promising writer internationally.”
Since Wang is dead, though, it’s hard interesting foreign publishers in his work. In 2008 State University of New York published “Wang in Love” and “Bondage: Three Novellas”, but “they did no publicity, and the translation is not good enough for me”, says Abrahamsen. “So it created little attention in the US.”
He also admires Li Juan and translated one of her essays, which was published by Pathlight, an English quarterly of the People’s Literature Publishing House, which introduces Chinese literature abroad.
“Her language is very good, but very hard to translate,” Abrahamsen says. “Translation can easily kill the subtlety in her words.”
While writers of past generations now seem flat and old-fashioned, he says (“Mo Yan’s narration is creative but his language is too exaggerated”), there’s greater potential for contemporary authors to become accepted overseas.
Paper Republic has bought the copyright to Liang Hong’s non-fiction “China in Liangzhuang”, A Lai’s “Empty Mountain” and several works by Wang Xiaobo. Abrahamsen reckons African and Chinese writers can become better known in the West despite the stark differences in cultural background.
“Western publishers usually bring out a Chinese novel by chance, like Mai Jia’s ‘Decoded’. A British translator came across it at the airport because of a delayed flight and his grandfather happened to be a decoder. How many books have such a coincidence?”
This source first appeared on The Nation Life.