China has recently published the collected works of the Bengali Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in Chinese, according to BSS.
It is a 33 volume labor of love by Chinese-Bengali experts in collaboration with the Bengali service of China Radio International (CRI) and encompasses the poet’s poems, songs, essays, letters, novels and short stories.
However, this is not the first translation of Tagore in Chinese. In the ’90s a translation of Tagore’s selected works were published in China.
In his life time Tagore visited China several times and had a great impact on Chinese intellectuals and society, which has not waned over the ages.
The complete works of Tagore have been translated directly from Bengali into Chinese on the occasion of the poet’s birth anniversary by the efforts of Professor Dong Youchen, a professor at the Center for South Asia Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University.
The project took a dedicated team of 17 translators nearly six years. They include Mrs. Yu Guangyue, Director of the Bengali Language Service of China Radio International (CRI); Prof. Bai Kaiyuan, Prof.Shi Jingwu, Madam Zhong Shaoli at the CRI Bengali Service, Pan Xiaozhu, a veteran reporter of the Xinhua News Agency and Liu Yunzhi, an official at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. .
The writings of Tagore are extremely popular in China even today and it shows the great love and high esteem with which the Chinese people view him and his writings. In the words of Professor Dong Youchen, Tagore “not only built up deep friendship with renowned Chinese literary figures, but also exerted significant influence on many Chinese writers.” Dong said, “When we read him, we don’t feel it is foreign literature; we feel it is our own story. He had a great love for China.
In 1881 as a teen, the Nobel Laureate wrote an essay on the opium trade in China, expressing deep sympathy for the Chinese. He also had a strong sense of justice. Though drawn to Japanese art and culture, he strongly condemned the Japanese attack on China. When someone tried to justify it by calling it a process to unify Asia, he called it wrongful aggression.”
As Mrs.Yang Wei Ming, a CRI Bengali presenter and translator put it “Chinese readers got familiar with the unique writings of Rabindranath Tagore through the English translations of Tagore’s works in the early twentieth century. The translation process of Rabindra literature directly from Bengali to Chinese language began with the hands of Bengali experts of China Radio International in the middle of 1970s”.
Rabindranath Tagore was very popular in China. As a poet he had significant impact on China’s literature. Chinese is the language which has done the most for Tagore’s publications, second only to Indian languages and English.
Prof. Bai Kaiyuan, veteran presenter of CRI Bengali Service, is a well-known translator of Rabindranath Tagore’s major literary works. He has translated 17000 lines of Rabindranth Tagore’s poems, essays and novels in Chinese for his love for Tagore.He received the second prize for his translated writing “Taigeer shi xuan” awarded by China Radio International in 1999. Another senior presenter of CRI -Bengali Service Prof. Shi Jingwu, a renowned scholar, also translated the literature of Rabindranath Tagore into Chinese.
Praising Tagore’s songs, Chen Aiming, the President of the World Music Society of Chinese Musicians Association, said: “There had been many publications of Tagore’s literary works but hardly any musical works and it is the first grand celebration for his achievements in music, which reflected Chinese people’s admiration for Tagore and the ever-deepening friendship between China and India.”
Rabindranath Tagore is revered throughout China. In modern times, the Chinese leadership gives much importance to the path of Tagore’s humanism and ideals. When paying a visit to India in June 1954 Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai said “We will never forget Tagore’s love towards China and also cannot forget Tagore’s support towards China’s Liberation Movement.”
In more recent times, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that he had read several poetry collections of the late Nobel Prize winner in literature and quoted Rabindranath Tagore: “Grow like a summer flower, magnificently; die like an autumn leaf, quietly and beautifully!”
