Chinese New Year – The Year of the Ox – will start on 12 Feb 2021. A gorgeous Chinese picture book Sleepy Sleepy New Year was published in English in September 2020, thanks to the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. We asked Frances Weightman, Director of the Centre to tell us more about it. Thank you, Frances!
Continue readingIn September, we interviewed Paolo Magagnin and asked him about translations of Chinese children’s books into Italian. He said we must talk to Silvia Torchio, the Italian translator of Jimmy Liao 幾米, and kindly offered to put us in touch. How could we resist?! Almost everyone who comes across Jimmy Liao’ s books wonders why they aren’t available in every language… Thank you, Paolo, and thank you Silvia, for taking the time to talk to us!
Continue readingThis post is published simultaneously on Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI)
Kirkus reviewer Rachel Yung-Hsin Wang has lived and worked in many parts of the world, and is something of a polyglot. Earlier this year she completed an MFA in Writing for Children at Simmons University, having won a Lee & Low and Simmons Friends Scholarship. We were keen to hear more about her time at Simmons and about her interest in children’s literature. Rachel has also recently joined the award jury for the GLLI Translated Young Adult Literature Award. Thank you, Rachel, for agreeing to this interview!
Continue readingSince 2012, CCPPG (China Children’s Press and Publication Group 中国少年儿童出版社) has developed a number of Sino-foreign collaborative picture books – matching a Chinese author with a non-Chinese illustrator, or vice versa. In this post, we present some of the books that have been produced, and quote Sun Zhu 孙柱, President of CCPPG on the impact of these collaborations. Where we know of an English edition, we have given details for that book. For further details see Teri Tan’s article in Publisher’s Weekly, 17 April 2020, and the CCPPG Catalogue 2020.
Continue readingThe 2020 Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Awards 陈伯吹国际儿童文学奖 were announced in Shanghai on 12 November. Congratulations to all the winners!
Continue readingKate Titmuss recently contacted us about buying Chinese books in the UK. She very kindly agreed to an interview. Thank you, Kate!
Continue readingIn June, Nicky Harman told us about Huang Beijia’s novel I Want to Be Good. We are delighted to hear she has just finished translating another novel by Huang Beijia – Flight of the Bumblebee. Of course, we wanted to know more, and asked Nicky to tell us about it. Thank you, Nicky!
Continue readingLidong Xiang 项黎栋 is currently studying for her PhD in Chinese children’s literature at Rutgers University-Camden. We’re very grateful to her for taking the time to tell us more about her work. Thank you, Lidong!
Continue readingThe 2020 White Ravens Catalogue was published today. It includes eight new Chinese titles, published in 2019 and 2020.
The annually published White Ravens catalogue is the most important ongoing publication of the International Youth Library (IYL), in Munich. It is published each autumn to be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair. All new White Ravens titles are introduced at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair the following year.
From the large number of reviewer’s copies and donations which are received from publishing houses, institutions, organizations and friends of the library, the IYL language specialists (Lektoren) select 200 new outstanding books from more than 50 countries in over 30 languages to be White Ravens each year. A copy of each book is held in the collection of the IYL.
A few years ago, I started to put together a list of all the Chinese titles that have been selected as White Ravens over the years, collecting data online and visiting the IYL in July 2019. Lucia Obi, the East Asian language specialist at the IYL kindly checked my work, edited it and enhanced it. Together, we can now share this impressive list of 139 Chinese White Ravens, 1984-2020:
The titles are hyperlinked to my original source of data:
If you’d like to see all 139 Chinese titles selected as White Ravens, 1984-2020, click on the link below:
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL TRANSLATION DAY!
Following on from our conversation with Wiley Blevins (no. 109), here is a list of the Chinese books published by Reycraft Books. For convenience and interest, I’ve added the Chinese text for titles, authors and illustrators. I’ve also added images of the covers of the Chinese books, where I can – it’s interesting to see how Reycraft Books kept, adapted or changed the cover art in the English editions. Click on the book-titles to go directly to the relevant pages on the Reycraft Books website, where there are summaries of the stories and details of the authors and illustrators. The titles are given in alphabetical order below. Check out Reycraft Books on Youtube too.
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