On August 16, translator and Shanghai Maritime University Professor Wu Jianguo presided over the translation of Henry James Novel Series and The Complete Short Stories of Maugham translated by Professor Bo Zhenjie, a doctoral supervisor of Shanghai Maritime University, was officially released at Shanghai Exhibition Center to meet with book lovers and literature enthusiasts.
Henry James (1843-1916) was the founder of the modern American novel and novel theory and was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Henry James Novels Series is a collection of carefully selected novels by Henry James. The six long novels, four middle-grade novels, and two series of short stories in the Henry James Novels series are his most representative and outstanding works.
William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) is known as “the sage of storytelling” and “the great short story writer of the 20th century”. Maugham's 92 short stories are selected by Maugham himself, with a wide range of themes and meaningful messages. The translation of The Complete Short Stories of Maugham began in 2018, with scholars engaged in the study and translation of foreign literature from five universities, including Shanghai Maritime University and Shandong University, as the main translators, and after two years of hard work, the translation task of about 1.7 million words was completed. Shanghai Maritime University undertook the translation task of three of the books, namely Rain, Footprints in the Jungle, and Portrait of a Gentleman.
The book launch was hosted by Qiu Xiaoqun, the responsible editor and planner of People's Literature Publishing House. The main translation team of Henry James Novel Series, including Prof. Wu Jianguo and Prof. Bo Zhenjie from Shanghai Maritime University, Prof. Li Heqing from Shanghai Electric College, and Associate Prof. Wang Yuexi from Shanghai Jiaotong University, etc., the main translation team of The Complete Short Stories of Maugham, including Prof. Bo Zhenjie and Prof. Wu Jianguo from Shanghai Maritime University, Li Jiayun, Prof. Li Heqing from Shanghai Electric College, and Associate Prof. Wang Yuexi from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and other experts and book lovers shared interesting stories, reflections, and hardships in translation.
Professor Wu said they actively organized relevant young teachers and graduate students from the College of Foreign Languages of Shanghai Maritime University to participate in these two literary research and literary translation projects. Through these two translation projects, they have both gained the opportunity to combine translation theory and translation practice, and have both solidly improved their professionalism and literary translation level, as well as achieved the congratulatory result of being able to publish their own translations of world literary masterpieces in such an authoritative publishing house as the People's Literature Press.
These two books were both published by the People's Literature Press, are another welcome achievement in the study and translation of Western literary classics in Chinese universities.
(Reported by the College of Foreign Languages office; Translated by Li Huixian)
