A two-volume French-language collection of short stories by 15 Taiwan authors was published recently by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, marking a significant step in the institution’s efforts to expand international awareness of local literary traditions.
Funded by the museum in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, the translation project is led by French sinologists Isabelle Rabut and Angel Pino. The pair penned introductions for each writer in the anthology and wrote a preface explaining the development of Taiwan literature from the Japanese colonial period, which lasted from 1895 to 1945, until the end of the 20th century.
The two volumes take their titles from the short stories “Small Town with Papaya Trees” by Long Ying-zong and “Three-Legged Horse” by Cheng Ching-wen, respectively. The publication of the former tale, which was written during the period of Japanese rule, marks the first time Taiwan literature from the colonial era has been translated into French, the Ministry of Culture said.
According to the MOC, the volumes will offer teaching resources for French universities and serve as important reference materials for Taiwan literature researchers in the French-speaking world. Two further French-language volumes of Taiwan short stories from the four decades since the 1970s are scheduled to be published under the translation project in 2018, the ministry added.
Zhou Dan-ying, a Paris-based Taiwan writer and translator who is participating in the project, said the NMTL’s efforts will help foster greater cultural exchanges between the two sides since Taiwan literature remains a relatively obscure subject in French literary and academic sectors.
Promotional activities for the collection will commence Feb. 12 in France with the screening of documentaries about Taiwan writers at the Taipei Representative Office in Paris. In addition, Rabut and Pino will tour bookstores in the French capital, while Taiwan scholars will give speeches about the nation’s literary history at several French universities from March 7 to 9.
Since 2011, the NMTL’s translation program has produced more than 100 publications in languages including Czech, English, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. Noting that the museum’s 2015 projects had led to the publication of 16 newly translated books by June last year, MOC Minister Cheng Li-chiun pledged further funding to support the institution’s translation efforts. (KTJ-E)
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