Opinion | I translated Chinese writer Louis Cha ‘Jin Yong’. Here’s why he never caught on in the West
- Graham Earnshaw, who translated The Book and the Sword, says the late author’s work had deep roots in Chinese history, language and nuance
- Cha’s lack of acceptance abroad was ironic, considering his huge leap in the direction of Western literary methodology
At lunch one day with Louis Cha Leung-yung, the late author of the kung fu novels that inspired pretty much the entire fantasy universe of China today, he told me about how he was not alone in hoping that his works could achieve some measure of international recognition, commensurate with their impact in the Chinese world.
Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, Cha said, was a great fan. Jiang had arranged for an emissary to visit the Nobel Prize committee and say it was time for a Chinese writer to get the prize for literature, and that the Chinese government believed Jin Yong, Cha’s pen name, was the right writer to be honoured.
“Of course, they declined,” Cha said, as he told the story over lunch at a Western restaurant in Hong Kong’s Happy Valley area. “And the irony was that with the suggestion having been made, I was forever ruled out from being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.”
Cha was always eager to have his stories gain recognition globally, and in terms of their sheer cultural impact, there is no doubt he deserved that Nobel Prize.
When I contacted him in early 1979, to say that I was translating his book, The Book and the Sword, into English, he was very enthusiastic and generous with his time. He made himself available to answer questions, and I used the opportunity to speak with him regularly, often on the phone. We spoke almost exclusively in Cantonese, a foreign tongue for both of us, but his accent was far stronger than mine.
There had been only one translation of any his stories before I contacted him, and it was not well-regarded. I was busy doing many things at the time and it took me three or four years to finish it. I translated pretty much the whole thing, which, in the Hong Kong Chinese editions of the time, was two volumes and about 800 pages in total. I then put it to one side. It was about 15 years later that I was contacted – either by Cha or by Oxford University Press – about publishing it.
