Nearly a century after the last volume of In Search of Lost Time appeared, Taiwan is finally to have a complete Chinese translation of Marcel Proust’s modernist classic.
The new Chinese translation of In Search of Lost Time is based directly on the French text and is to be released in paperback on Thursday next week, with a hardcover edition to follow later next month, Linking Publishing said yesterday.
The seven-volume novel was first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past from the original French title A la recherche du temps perdu. It unfolds as a stream-of-consciousness narrative in which the narrator recalls his experiences of French high society from the late 19th to the early 20th century, featuring more than 2,000 characters.
Photo courtesy of Linking Publishing via CNA
Linking published Taiwan’s first Traditional-Chinese edition in 1992, but it was essentially an adaptation of a Simplified Chinese translation.
The upcoming translation is the result of a four-year project coordinated by Wu Kun-Yung (吳坤墉), former president of the Association Taiwanaise des Traducteurs de Francais (ATTF), and involving seven Taiwanese translators, each handling one volume, for a total of more than 2 million words, the publisher said in a statement.
The translators are Chiu Jui-luan (邱瑞鑾), Chen Wen- yao (陳文瑤), Hsu Yawen (許雅雯), Shih Wu-ken (石武 耕), Chen Yu-wen (陳郁雯), Ma Siang-yang (馬向陽) and Lin Te-yu (林德祐).
All the translators involved have devoted at least one to two decades to translation work and have been nominated multiple times for the ATTF-BNP Paribas Translation Prize, one of the major awards for local French translator, while three of them are past winners of the prize.
“Translating Proust is a challenging yet meaningful task. A la recherche du temps perdu stands as a symbolic milestone for every French-language translator,” Wu was quoted as saying by the publisher.
It was precisely the difficulty of Proust’s writing that made the translators eager to take up the challenge, he said.
Lin Te-yu found numerous mistranslated passages when consulting the previous edition, which he attributed to the author’s notoriously complex prose, the publisher said.
“Proust’s work is always waiting on the horizon, and it merits an updated rendition in a new language from time to time,” Lin said, adding that the new translation aims to bring readers closer to the original.
To help readers better navigate Proust’s world, Linking Publishing has also invited five experts from the fields of music, literature, history, art and food to contribute a reader’s guide to accompany the seven-volume set.
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