Wen Jieruo, widow of writer and translator Xiao Qian, is in town. On March 8 she signed copies of her translation of E. M. Forster's "Maurice" for readers in the Huangpu District Library.
Later this month, she will appear at the unveiling ceremony of a bronze statue of her late husband, Xiao Qian, in Fengxian County.
Xiao Qian's statue will be part of a memorial project in Fengxian, which includes statues and museums for important figures who had worked in Shanghai. Wen plans to move some of Xiao's ashes to the memorial and to donate some of his manuscripts and books to the museum.
Xiao Qian worked in Ta Kung Pao between 1936-37, and he taught in the Journalism and Foreign Language Departments of Fudan University in the 1940s, Wen said. She was satisfied with the bronze sculpture which shows Xiao in his middle age, around 1946.
Wen herself is a translator, editor and writer. She worked as an editor of Japanese literature in People's Literature Press in Beijing for decades. Recently she received the insignia of the "Order of the Sacred - Gold Rays With Rosette" from the Japanese Government for her contribution to Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges.
Tackling Maurice
But she is better known as the co-translator of the Irish novelist James Joyce's great work, "Ulysses". Xiao and Wen brought out the first complete Chinese translation of the masterpiece in 1994, when Xiao was in his eighties.
A new edition came out last year and was launched in Shanghai by Wen on June 16 ? Blooms day, the day of the action in "Ulysses".
"I did the first-time translation and Xiao rewrote it. His language is beautiful," Wen told the Shanghai Star in the apartment she stays in when in Shanghai.
Now 76, Wen looks active and has a ready wit. She was wearing a dark green cheongsam, matching with the insignia. When the photographer left, she decided to change into something more comfortable but found the slide fastener on the dress broken.
"I am fat. The slide fastener broke when I sat down," she patted her stomach, though she looks small and slim.
Her translation work on "Maurice" by Forster started more than two years ago when she found the book while arranging Xiao's affairs after his death.
"Xiao was the only Chinese who read the book in the 1930s," Wen said. The book depicts homosexuality which was a sensitive issue in the early 1900s. Forster had demanded that the book not be published until after his death.
During Xiao's stay in Britain in World War II where he worked as a war correspondent, he got to know E. M. Forster and began a friendship that lasted to the 1950s.
"There is some similarity between the Peking-school literati and the Bloomsbury group in England in the 1930s," Wen said. "They both paid little attention to politics but kept up a higher pursuit of their art and craft."
A descendant of the Mongolians, Xiao was born in Beijing in 1910. He was expelled from high school at 18 for participating in students' movements and went to Guangdong, teaching for half a year and experiencing his first love. He returned the next year, entering the Chinese class of Yenching University, which did not require a high-school diploma.
In 1930, he entered the newly-established Catholic Fu Jin University with a fake diploma.
In 1936, Xiao was assigned to Shanghai for the preparation of Ta Kung Pao's Shanghai edition, where he married his first wife, Wang Shucang, nicknamed "Little Leaf". In Shanghai Xiao got on closely with writer Ba Jin, who gave him great help and looked on him as a little brother.
Two years later Xiao went to Hong Kong for Ta Kung Pao and fell in love with another woman. He tried to persuade "Little Leaf" to agree to a divorce but she refused. Not being able to find a solution for his love affairs, Xiao fled by ship from China to England.
A friend of Forster's
During his seven years in Britain, Xiao worked as a journalist, taught in the Oriental College of London University, and wrote several books about Chinese culture and Western influence on Chinese society.
Xiao and Forster exchanged more than 100 letters in the 1940s, until he returned to Beijing in 1949. In 1954, a delegation from Britain visited Beijing, and Forster asked a member to bring a letter and a book to Xiao.
The social environment was very tense in China at that time. Xiao did not dare to get in touch with the British visitor, who became annoyed, thinking that Xiao did not cherish the friendship of Forster. He took the book back to Forster, who destroyed most of the letters he had received from Xiao.
Xiao underwent a long investigation by the government into his contacts with Britain and the family had to destroy the letters he had received from Forster.
"Xiao tried to commit suicide," Wen recalled. "He never wrote any major work after that."
Between Japanese and English
Wen was the youngest daughter of a diplomatic family, spending her childhood in Japan and the Japanese school in Beijing, but she also studied English at college. After graduation in 1950, she worked in People's Literature Press as a Japanese editor, although having a great passion for English translation.
She found a mistake in the translation work of Jiang Tianzuo, one of her seniors, who disagreed with her. She went to Xiao for his opinion. He had been newly assigned to the publishing house in 1953. Xiao had just obtained his divorce and he married Wen the next year.
The director of the Yilin Publishing House, Li Jingduan, approached the couple trying to persuade them to translate "Ulysses". Xiao had some reservations about taking on such a difficult task at his age but Wen was excited.
Wen started the work and Xiao became more and more involved until the two finished the giant work together.
Xiao and Wen had a daughter and a son, together with another son from a previous marriage. When the daughter was applying to study in a university in the United States, Wen faked a paper for the girl.
"I didn't show it to Xiao Qian. If he made any modifications to it, it would be too refined, unlike a student's work," she said, smiling.
(Shanghai Star March 22, 2003)
