On Thursday, July 13 at 7.00pm, the China Cultural Centre in Malta in collaboration with Faraxa Publishing is launching the book Għoljet il-Qasab, the first Chinese children’s literature translated into Maltese by Stephen Cachia.
Għoljet il-Qasab (Wild Reeds Hill) is the title of a 2016 novel written by the Shanghai author Yin Jian Ling. The title refers to the name of a college that was administered by a number of monks at the beginning of the 20th century in Eastern China. The fiction story narrates the experience of a Chinese boy named You An who lived over a century ago. He is an unfortunate child who lost his mother at birth and lived with a deaf father and an abusive stepmother. The boy eventually flees home and ends up in an orphanage administered by foreign nuns. From there, he is taken to Wild Reeds Hill where he starts nursing an interest in painting and sculpture in spite of all the difficulties that he has to face, including the fact that he has to deal with a foreign culture that has been imposed on his country.
Stephen Cachia got to know about this novel in 2018 as part of a translation project by the Malta National Book Council. He felt immediately captivated by this book since its story was based in Xujiahui, a locality in Shanghai that he loved to visit and explore during his stay in China while working for Malta at Shanghai Expo
“Although the Chinese used by Yin Jian Ling is very fluent to read, it presented several challenges to translate it into the Maltese language. It is not that easy to write in Maltese about Chinese landscapes, cultures and other aspects dating back to a hundred years ago without sounding artificial. Moreover, Chinese sentences could be really long and there were several instances where I had to divide the text into a number of shorter sentences to keep the same flowing rhythm that was used in the original book,” explained Cachia.
More intriguing thoughts and experiences of this memorable journey of translation will be shared with the audience by Cachia during this launch. Limited copies of the book will be on sale at a special price on-site.
Yin Jian Ling is a famous Chinese writer of children's literature and member of the National Committee of China Writers Association. She was the senior editor of the Shanghai newspaper Xinmin Wanbao. The writer has a BA from the Law and Politics Department, at Huadong Normal University, and an MA from the Chinese Literature Department at Shanghai Normal University. Having her poetry published when she was eighteen, she has continued to write and publish poetry, essays, novels, reportage and opinions. Yin has won numerous awards for her books, including the prestigious Chen Bochui International Children's Literature Award.
Cachia is a teacher, lecturer, writer and translator. He graduated from the University of Malta and the University of New England with an MA in Chinese in 2018. He lectures in Chinese language and Chinese history at the Department of Middle Eastern and East Asian Studies and the Department of History at the University of Malta. In 2007, he published the poetry book Żifef u Rwiefen (Breezes and Gales) together with the writer Patrick Sammut.
Attendance is free of charge. Please reserve your seat at events2023ccc@gmail.com. Priority will be given to members of the China Cultural Centre in Malta.