Kategori: Books Böcker 书

The theme for this ”calendar” was supposed to be ”China books”, so why choose a Mongolian book today? Well, Mongolian is one of the larger minority languages in China, and this book is written and published by Angcinku̇u̇ 安柯钦夫 (1929-2013), a Mongolian author from Ulanhad (Chifeng 赤峰, earlier known as Ju Ud League 昭乌达盟) in Inner Mongolia. Angcinku̇u̇ was a CPC member and held high positions in the Chinese Writers Association 中国作家协会. He seems to have mostly written short stories, and the book of the day is a short story collection, 北国新姿 in Chinese or ”Northern New Look” in my approximate translation. It was published in 1963 and how it ended up in our collection in Gothenburg is not quite clear, but I suspect my predecessors at the University of Gothenburg, Olov Bertil Anderson (1920-1993) or Tor Ulving (1916-2014), both polyglots. Ulving knew dozens of languages, and he compiled his own ”Lhasa-Swedish” (Tibetan-Swedish) dictionary, never published but with its original index card word collection still kept at the department.

I cannot say much about the content of the book as I don’t know Mongolian, but the short details in Chinese do tell us a few interesting things. The translator Ding Erjia 丁尔甲 is difficult to trace, but I have found out that he or she must have been one of the more important translators from Mongolian to Chinese in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, in 1976 Ding Erjia translated the 18th century Chinese classic 红楼梦 Dream of the Red Chamber into Mongolian together with a handful other translators.

The street name of the publisher is also interesting, Xiluofengjie 西落凤街 in Hohhot 呼和浩特. This is the street where the Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1839-1908) spent some of her teenage years. Cixi was born in Beijing, but followed her father Huizheng 惠征 when he was transferred to serve as military magistrate 兵备道 in what was then Guisui 归绥. So much from a random Mongolian book in Gothenburg – and I found that it sells for 200 yuan RMB on Chinese antiquarian book site 孔夫子旧书网…

The image above is intriguing, and one really wonders what ”affairs” the two gentlemen were discussing. Archibald Ross Colquhoun 柯樂洪 (1848-1914) was a British explorer who was also the first Administrator of Southern Rhodesia (current Zimbabwe) 1890-1894. After this he returned to the UK, but in the second half of the 1890s travelled to Asia, and became The Times correspondent in China, travelling extensively around the country. He wrote several books about China and travelling in Asia, one of them the book of the day, China in Transformation, first edition 1898. Li Hongzhang (1823-1901) was a towering figure in late Qing China, being central for stopping the Taiping Rebellion, holding high level posts in the Qing government, and just before his death signing the Boxer Protocol. Li toured Russia, Europe and North America in 1896.

Besides the value and interest of the book as such, it has also had an interesting owner. The book is autographed by Helmer Key (1864-1939), who was a Swedish literary scholar and also the editor-in-chief of Svenska Dagbladet (1897-1934), the leading conservative newspaper in Sweden. Key was also the chair of the Swedish Publicists’ Association 1917-1920. Helmer Key had an interest in international affairs, likely with a colonial perspective, and published a longer article in 1900 called ”China and its commercial future” (”Kina och dess kommersiella framtid”). Most likely Colquhoun’s book was one of his major sources. Helmer Key was related to the feminist author and educationalist Ellen Key, and he was also the model for the character ”Dr Doncker” in Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel The Serious Game (Den allvarsamma leken).

Xi Jinping in his third term as party leader, massive covid protests, the recent death of Jiang Zemin… so much happening in China – and I make a ”Christmas calendar” about old books? Well, why not? Every day at work I walk past our department collection of China related books, and there are so many intriguing objects there. Physical books are today too often seen as only taking up space, gathering dust and so on, but only in our small collection at the Department of Languages and Literatures in Gothenburg you can find many both valuable and fascinating volumes. I have randomly chosen 24 books to present here until Christmas, just for fun.

Today, 1 December 2022, I have chosen Robert Montgomery Martin’s (1801-1868) China, Political, Commercial, and Social in two volumes, first edition from 1847. Martin was born in Dublin and in his twenties travelled to Ceylon, South Africa, and Madagascar, and also stayed over a year in Australia. Back in England he became a writer, taking an interest in colonial affairs, and was a founding member of The Royal Statistical Society in 1834. The same year Martin published the major work The History of the British Colonies in five volumes, in 1837 expanded to ten volumes. In 1844 he was appointed as the first Colonial Treasurer 庫務司 of Hong Kong. He resigned already in 1845 after a conflict with the governor Sir John Francis Davis about opium revenues, and returned to England. In today’s book China, Political, Commercial, and Social there is a section on opium that was also published separately. Apparently Martin in his reports as Colonial Treasurer argued that Hong Kong as a colony was ”doomed to failure”.

Martin is not very well-known today, but the maps from these two volumes sometimes appear on the market, and the complete book in good condition is quite sought after. The full text of the two volumes is available online.

I buy too many books, and often there is no time to read them directly. I bought Yu Hua’s China in Ten Words (十個詞彙裡的中國) while visiting Hong Kong in April this year, but only started reading recently, bringing the book back to Hong Kong… Yu Hua (余华) is one of China’s best known writers, and has had great success with novels as Brothers (兄弟) and To live (活着), of which the later was filmed by Zhang Yimou (张艺谋) and became a great success around the World.

One of Yu Hua’s ten words is ”reading” (阅读). Nowadays, when an ebook is only a click away on your ”pad”, it is a necessary reminder to read his story of how people lined up outside the bookstores days ahead of a new release when censorship eased after Mao’s death in the late 1970s. Being here in Hong Kong is probably a good environment to read this particular book, in China but still not, just as the book is written in China but not published in the PRC.

Many of the stories relate to Yu Hua’s youth during the Cultural Revolution, but are also highly relevant to contemporary China. The ten words point to many of the current problems in China, such as ”disparities” (差距) and ”leader” (领导). The cult of Mao as ”the great helmsman” seems absurd and frightening today, but recent events around the ”disappearance” and ”reappearance” of supposed new leader Xi Jinping (习近平), and the mystery surrounding it, tells us that the word ”leader” is still of great importance.

One story tells how Yu Hua escapes the summer heat in his southern hometown by napping in the mortuary of the hospital where he lives, both his parents being doctors. On ”the clean, cool cement bed” he could find some peace. When Yu Hua visited Sweden a few years ago, I interpreted for him as he spoke on ”the imagination of a writer”. Not an easy task, and when he then told this same story the word ”mortuary” (太平间) was one (of several…) that escaped my mind. A senior colleague in the audience gave me the word, and the lecture went on as normal. Now that I read Yu Hua’s book and recognize this story, I realize that I will never forget the word ”mortuary” in Chinese.

Det är inte varje dag man får en klassiker med posten. Men häromdagen hände det! Det var första bandet av den färska danska fullständiga översättningen av Jin Ping Mei (金瓶梅), först utgiven 1617. Översättare är den danska sinologen Vibeke Børdahl (易德波) som är känd för sina studier i kinesisk muntlig litteratur och berättarkonst, shuoshu 说书. Jin Ping Mei kan betyda ”Plommonblom i gyllene vas” men är också en anspelning på tre kvinnor som är centrala i den långa romanen, Jinlian (金莲 ”Gyllene lotus”), Pinger (瓶儿 ”Lilla vasen”) och Chunmei (春梅 ”Vårplommonblomma”). Jin Ping Mei kom ut på svenska 1950 i en ofullständig version översatt från tyska. Många andra europeiska utgåvor har också haft avsnitt utelämnade eller rentav översatta till latin. Varför? Jo, Jin Ping Mei ger inte bara inblickar i familjen Ximens förfall i 1110-1120-talens Kina (Norra Songdynastin 北宋), utan är också en erotisk klassiker med detaljerade sexskildringar. Även i Kina har den censurerats och stoppats från utgivning men ändå alltid lästs.

Jin Ping Mei har en viss koppling till en annan klassiker, Berättelser från träskmarkerna (水浒传), och huvudpersonen Ximen Qing (西门庆) förekommer i båda. Med Vibeke Børdahls översättning finns nu fyra av fem klassiska kinesiska romaner i full modern översättning till något nordiskt språk. Göran Malmqvist har tidigare översatt Berättelser från träskmarkerna och Färden till västern (西游记) och Pär Bergman Drömmar om röda gemak (红楼梦). Nu fattas bara Berättelsen om de tre kungarikena (三国演义).

Jin Ping Mei ska komma ut i tio volymer under de kommande sex åren. Utgivare är Forlaget Vandkunsten som gjort en väldigt vacker utgåva, både i bindningen och i illustrationerna tagna från en tidig utgåva från 1620-30-talen. 2010 kontaktades jag och några kollegor av förlaget för att vara granskare och sakkunniga inför utgivningen och nu har den alltså kommit. Det är ett storverk som Vibeke Børdahl åstadkommit. Läs den!

Introducing the new full Danish translation of Jin Ping Mei by Vibeke Børdahl. Of the main classic novels we now only lack a translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in a Nordic language.

介绍刚出版的丹麦语全译本《金瓶梅》。现在北欧语言只缺乏《三国演义》的译本。