Howard Goldblatt, research professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded the inaugural 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize for his translation of “Wolf Totem” by Chinese author Jiang Rong.
The book is a fictional account of Jiang’s life on the Mongolian grasslands during China’s Cultural Revolution of the 1970s.
Sponsored by the Man Group, a London-based futures brokerage company, the Man Asian Literary Prize is designed to bring new Asian authors to the attention of the world literary community, to facilitate publishing and translation of Asian literature into English, and to highlight Asia’s developing role in world literature.
Penguin Publishing acquired the English language rights to “Wolf Totem,” which is scheduled for release in English in March.
A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2002, Goldblatt is the foremost translator of modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the West. He has published English translations of more than 30 works by writers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and his translation of “Notes of a Desolate Man” by Taiwanese novelist Chu T’ien-wen won the 1999 “Translation of the Year” award by the American Translators Association.
Goldblatt has contributed essays and articles for several publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Times of London, and Time Magazine, among others.
Originally published by at newsinfo.nd.edu on December 06, 2007.