春雨直播app

This book is a Chinese translation of The Literary Sinitic Context in Modern Times: A Literary Sphere in the Late Qing and the Meiji Era, published in Japanese in 2005 by the University of Nagoya Press. The translator is Sheng Haowei, and it was published in 2020 by Socio Publishing Co. Ltd. in Taiwan, fifteen years after the original book was published. I recall that the proposal to translate the book was made when Mr. Sheng, from National Taiwan University, was enrolled for one year at the University of Tokyo in 2015, with me as his supervisor, or some time later. The book is a study of various aspects of écriture, or the act of writing, in modern East Asia from the perspective of the “literary Sinitic context” (kanbunmyaku), and I was delighted to receive Mr. Sheng’s proposal. A Korean translation was brought out in 2018 by No Hyegyeong of Yonsei University. Somewhat confusingly, I have also written a book called The Literary Sinitic Context and Modern Japan, which has been translated into Korean and English (Kanbunmyaku: The Literary Sinitic Context and the Birth of Modern Japanese Language and Literature), and a Chinese translation is due to be published later this year.
 
To be honest, when I wrote the original book, I never imagined that there would be any opportunities for it to be translated into other languages. Some chapters I had presented at academic conferences in China and the United States, which I translated myself into Chinese or English and had them checked by native speakers, but I struggled with passages discussing kundoku and the kundoku style of writing. I improvised by including the original Japanese of quoted passages in notes, but I felt as if I was covering up the inadequacies of my translation abilities by doing so. Some colleagues also told me that it would be difficult to translate such a book, starting with the term kanbunmyaku in the title, which is difficult to understand as it is. (To clarify, this is a term commonly seen in Meiji-era discussions of writing styles, and I have merely extended its usage, but this “extension” has proved to be problematic.)
 
Mr. Sheng’s translation overcame this problem with his clear intention to broaden the readership of the original specialist work to those interested (and those who, it was hoped, might become interested) in this issue. Perhaps because Mr. Sheng is himself an editor and a writer, the flow of the text is, I think, superior to the original. For readers unfamiliar with kundoku, the “Translator’s Guide” at the start of the book will serve as a good introduction. The explanation of kanbunmyaku is also clear and succinct. Whereas the original was a hardcover, the Chinese translation is a lightweight softcover with a pop-style cover design, which I really like, together with the design of the book itself with the cover removed. I am actually writing this in Taiwan while on an academic trip. I have found, for some reason, both taking this book, which I brought with me, out of my bag and rereading parts of it here and there to be enjoyable.
 
In the closing section of the “Translator’s Guide” attention is drawn to the activities of intellectuals of the “literary Sinitic context” in Taiwan during the period of Japanese colonial rule. Having been first offered to readers in Taiwan, this book now seems to be gaining readers in China, too. I would like to express my thanks once again to the translator, Sheng Haowei.
 

(Written by SAITO Mareshi, Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2024)