The translation of Kieu, an expedition into Vietnam’s literature
Phuong Thuy -
(VOVworld) – The translation of the Tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du into foreign languages has never been an easy task. Up to present, the Tale of Kieu has been translated into 20 languages and is available for readers in many countries and territories around the world. VOV’s Phuong Thuy reports…
23-year-old Jan Komarek of Charles University in Prague, the Czech Republic completed the translation of 200 sentences in the Tale of Kieu from Vietnamese into the Czech language. With this project, Jan was awarded the Czech title of young translator less than 35 years of age. Jan said there are 60,000 overseas Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic but there are only a few Vietnamese literature works translated into Czech. They include Ho Xuan Huong poems, Ho Chi Minh’s prison diary, and the Tale of Kieu. Jan added there are two translation versions of the Tale of Kieu in the Czech language, both of which were translated in 1926 and 1958 from French into Czech, not from Vietnamese. Jan has become the first Czech person to translate the Tale of Kieu directly from Vietnamese into Czech: "I think the greatest value of the Tale of Kieu lies in the Vietnamese language. I’ve read the Tale of Kieu translated from French into Czech and I think it would be much better if I could translate the tale from Vietnamese with reference to explanations in Vietnamese, the translation of Huynh Sanh Thong in English, and Dao Duy Anh’s dictionary for the Tale of Kieu."
The translation of the Tale of Kieu into different foreign languages has never been easy, even for some overseas Vietnamese living abroad. Translator Truong Hong Quang said in 1951, President Ho Chi Minh presented the Tale of Kieu, translated by Truong Vinh Ky, to a German journalist named Franz Faber when Faber was in Vietnam during the Dien Bien Phu campaign. Franz Faber and his wife translated the tale into German in 1964 which was reprinted in 1980. However, this book was lost and fell into oblivion in Germany. Truong Hong Quang and some other translators planned to recover the translation of Franz Faber: "We hope to reprint Franz Faber’s translation of the tale of Kieu in bilingual languages, Vietnamese and German. There are about 120,000 overseas Vietnamese in Germany and it would be a great experience for the younger generations of OVs in Germany to explore their own culture through the tale of Kieu."
Translator Nguyen Huy Hoang has encouraged overseas Vietnamese in Russia to join his efforts to translate the tale into Russian. He said: "There are both Vietnamese and Russian translators in our group. The translation will be a joint effort of the two countries and a way to promote Vietnam’s literature to Russia, a cultural power in the world."
Nguyen Du’s Tale of Kieu was written in lục bát or "six-eight" meter. Nguyen Huy Hoang and his friends tried their best to keep the tale’s original content in their translation with certain changes in the way of expressions to make it suitable to Russian readers. Hoang said: "A good translator must be excellent in Vietnamese, the foreign languages he or she is specialized in, and the translation skills, to get over any linguistics barriers. We’ve done our best to make our translation simple and easiest for readers to understand."
Phuong Thuy