Professor wins Asian literary prize for translation

Author: Erik Runyon

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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 ofWolf Totemby Chinese author Jiang Rong.

The book is a fictional account of Jiangs life on the Mongolian grasslands during Chinas 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 Asias developing role in world literature.

Penguin Publishing acquired the English language rights toWolf 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 ofNotes of a Desolate Manby Taiwanese novelist Chu Tien-wen won the 1999Translation of the Yearaward 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.

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