China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration is a professional foreign languages institution that publishes about 4000 books including 1000 books in foreign languages. These books are distributed in 160 countries. Jointly with China Writers Association organized an international Forum for Literature Development at Guangzhou between November 11 and 15 2018
16 writers from 13 countries and 14 Chinese writers presented their views on topics like Literature Creation in Globalization, Literature & Translation. Chinese writers discussed on Silk Road also.
I spoke on Literature and translation.
I began my speech like this: ” I come from a country that writes in 24 languages and speaks hundreds of dialects. Among these 24 languages, five are classical languages, which means that they are in existence for over 2000 years. They are diverse in their scripts and accents. Literature is the cultural communication between us. We understand each other’s emotions, respect values and exchange ideas through translations.
Literature is the music of the heart. And translations are the magic of the mind. We are experiencing this every day in our life, particularly when you travel from place to place.”
I recalled Bhrathi’s translations on Qiu Jin: ”
The great National Poet of India, Subramania Bharathi, translated the biographical sketch of Qiu Jin appeared in the journal, Asiatic Review, in Tamil in May 1918. He describes her life right from her birth at Xiamen, Fujian, her unhappy marriage, her journey to Japan, her association with Sun Yat Sen, her associations with revolutionary societies to overthrow Qing dynasty, her journals, her eloquence, and finally her execution at the age of 31. He has even translated one of her speech and a poem.
All these were used to educate women in India on their rights and to motivate them to seek their rights. India was in colonial rule then, under British. And it may be remembered that this translation was done 100 years ago, in 1918, when the communication was a challenging task!”
I briefly mentioned about the translation of Shi Jing, an anthology of 305 poems, supposed to have been made by Confucius, which is the earliest extant book available in Chinese literary history into Tamil by an Indian diplomat Sridharan Madhusudhanan. Sridharan says, ” There are surprising similarities between the ancient Chinese literature and the Sangam literature of ancient Tamil”
To read my speech in English :http://maalan.co.in/literature-and-translation/
To read my speech in Chinese: http://maalan.co.in/translation-of-my-speech-in-chinese/
The whole town was decorated for the event. The well known landmark was the television transmission tower. It was illuminated well and carried the theme of the conference. I share here two small video clips.
