{"id":5165,"date":"2015-05-20T23:38:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T03:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=5165"},"modified":"2015-05-20T23:38:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T03:38:20","slug":"liu-xiaobo-is-locked-up-in-china-and-locked-out-of-the-translation-of-a-paul-auster-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/liu-xiaobo-is-locked-up-in-china-and-locked-out-of-the-translation-of-a-paul-auster-novel","title":{"rendered":"Liu Xiaobo Is Locked Up in China, and Locked Out of the Translation of a Paul Auster Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"19SINO-CENSOR02-tmagArticle\"<\/a>By CHRIS BUCKLEY MAY 20, 2015 3:00 PM May 20, 2015 3:00 pm 2 Comments
\nA portrait of the Chinese dissident-writer Liu Xiaobo at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. Mr. Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.Credit Espen Rasmussen for The New York Times<\/p>\n

The works of the New York writer Paul Auster often hinge on ominous disappearances, and his novel \u201cSunset Park\u201d has passages about the secretive detention of the Chinese dissident-writer Liu Xiaobo in 2008 and the efforts of the PEN American Center, a writers\u2019 advocacy group, to secure his release.<\/p>\n

Lately, Mr. Liu has vanished again from Mr. Auster\u2019s fictional world.<\/p>\n

In a twist that might well fit in one of Mr. Auster\u2019s self-referential novels, a report released on Wednesday by the PEN American Center says that the section of \u201cSunset Park\u201d about Mr. Liu\u2019s arrest was cut without Mr. Auster\u2019s approval in the Chinese translation of his book, another target of censorship that can strike literary works as well as explicitly political books.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is their new case, the most pressing case on the current agenda, and ever since Liu Xiaobo was detained in early December, they have worked on little else,\u201d says a passage about PEN American\u2019s efforts to free Mr. Liu in the English version of the novel, which was published in 2010. \u201cHe is being held in an undisclosed location, with no access to a lawyer, no writing materials, no way to communicate with anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the novel, Alice Bergstrom, a graduate student working at PEN American, senses \u201cthat no amount of indignation will alter the plans of the Chinese authorities, and even if PEN can roust a million people to pound on drums across the entire globe, there is little chance those drums will be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mainland Chinese edition of the novel, published late last year, left out the main parts about Mr. Liu\u2019s case, and remaining mentions of Mr. Liu and China were replaced by cryptic, almost Auster-esque references to \u201cL\u201d and \u201ccountry C.\u201d In reality, Mr. Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. His wife, Liu Xia, who is also mentioned in the original version of the novel, and appears in the Chinese edition as \u201cL\u2019s wife,\u201d lives in heavy isolation under informal house arrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I live in the world I write about,\u201d Mr. Auster, who has supported PEN American\u2019s efforts to secure Mr. Liu\u2019s freedom, said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not even blaming the publisher,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand the pressure they\u2019re under, and if they had taken a stand and printed those pages, they probably would have been shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times confirmed the cuts by comparing the English-language and mainland Chinese editions of \u201cSunset Park.\u201d According to the PEN American report, the Chinese company that oversaw the translation in China said that it had told Mr. Auster about the changes through a Chinese journalist based in New York. Mr. Auster denied that happened.<\/p>\n

Hollywood has been grappling with how to avoid offending China\u2019s censors while studios cultivate the country\u2019s huge audiences for action spectaculars. And the pressures on foreign book publishers and agents are growing. Despite the inroads of Internet entertainment, the Chinese remain avid readers of books, including many in translation.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Chinese publishers registered copyright contracts for 16,625 books from abroad, including 5,489 from the United States and 2,521 from Britain, according to government data. At BookExpo America, a major gathering of the publishing industry that opens in New York City on May 27, China will be the \u201cguest of honor\u201d at the Global Market Forum.
\nFor detail please visit here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By CHRIS BUCKLEY MAY 20, 2015 3:00 PM Ma … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,51,45],"tags":[1341,1256,1255],"views":5014,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5167,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5165\/revisions\/5167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}