Julia Lovell on Translating Lu Xun’s Complete Fiction: “His is an Angry, Searing Vision of China”
Danwei interviews Julia Lovell, whose translation of the complete works of Lu Xun,The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun (Penguin Classics)
Danwei: What significance do you think Lu Xun’s work has for the younger generations of Chinese people today?
Julia Lovell: Plenty, I think. But I would distinguish between two Lu Xuns: between, on the one hand, the heroic revolutionary Lu Xun (invented by Mao), whose works generations of schoolchildren have been forced to memorise (down to the punctuation, I believe); and on the other, a spikier, tirelessly critical, more realistic Lu Xun. I think that Lu Xun’s legacy of cosmopolitanism and intellectual independence – which comes through in a good deal of his dark fiction and polemical essays – is an important and useful reminder of modern China’s traditions of dissent and extraordinary receptiveness to the outside world.
China Beat also posted an excerpt of the new book.
