The work of Yu Hua, arguably one of China’s best known living authors, will be the focus of the next Modern China Lecture at Cal State San Bernardino.
“Translating Yu Hua: A Guest Lecture with Professor of Literature, Dr. Allan Barr,” will take place at 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, at CSUSB’s John M. Pfau Library, room PL-4005. The lecture is free and open to the public; parking at the university is $6.
Yu Hua is the author of ‘To Live,” “Brothers,” and “China in Ten Words.”
“Dr. Allan Barr has a remarkable ability to capture the essence of Yu Hua's work,' said Jeremy Murray, assistant professor of history at CSUSB and coordinator of the Modern China Lecture Series. “Translation is a collaborative and distinctive art and craft, and Dr. Barr is a creative, meticulous, and loyal translator of Yu Hua, a leading voice today in Chinese literature.”
Barr has translated five of Yu Hua’s books, including the widely admired essay collection, “China in Ten Words.”
In his synopsis of this talk, Barr said, “It is 30 years since (Yu Hua) first began to make an impact on the Chinese literary world, and 20 years since his first collection of stories in English translation was published; now is a good moment to take stock of the factors shaping the reception of his work by a Western audience. In this lecture I talk about my collaborations with Yu Hua, the challenges I have encountered when translating his stories and essays, and my role as an intermediary between author and editor.”
Barr, a professor of Chinese at Pomona College, has published a number of studies relating to Pu Songling (1640-1715) and his famous collection of strange tales, “Liaozhai zhiyi,” and the literature of the late Ming and early Qing continues to be his main research interest.
The Modern China Lecture Series was initiated to promote awareness of important issues related to China for those on the CSUSB campus and in the community. In the series of more than 30 lectures, workshops, film screenings, and roundtable forums since January 2014, China scholars from UC San Diego, UC Riverside, the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, USC, UC Irvine and other institutions have visited the CSUSB campus to share their expertise and opinions.
Speakers in the series have included specialists in history, economics, political science, philosophy, finance, security studies, literature, anthropology and other fields.
The Modern China Lecture Series is sponsored by the CSUSB Department of History, the History Club/Phi Alpha Theta, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, the College of Extended Learning, the Center for Global Management/Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, the College of Arts and Letters, John M. Pfau Library and the Intellectual Life Fund. Special thanks to History Department coordinator, Pam Crosson, as well as Iwona-Maria Luczkiewicz Contreras (Pfau Library) and Alan Llavore (Strategic Communications).
For more information on the Feb. 27 event or the Modern China Lecture Series, contact Jeremy Murray at (909) 537-5540 or jmurray@csusb.edu.