Veteran translator: Translation is pleasure
Editor's note: Lin Wusun, former president of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration (China International Publishing Group, CIPG), advisor to the Translators Association of China (TAC), and winner of Lifetime Achievement Award in Translation, is a leading translator and scholar in taking Chinese culture to the world. Born in Tianjin in 1928, he pursued his education in Tianjin, Shanghai and Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. In 1946, he went to the United States for further study. Four years later, he came back to China to make his personal contribution to the motherland. In the early 1950s, he visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea twice as a translator for visiting delegations. He served as the executive vice-president of the TAC, president of the National Review Board for Senior Translators, member of International Federation of Translators (IFT), and chief-editor of the Chinese Translators Journal. He translated, edited and finalized key official documents for the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council. His major translations include Sunzi: The Art of War, Sun Bin: The Art of War, Confucius Says: The Analects, 1937 Nanjing Massacre, Precious Historical Treasures of the Potala, The Silk Road in Cartoons, Riverside Talks: A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian, and Shanghai Pudong Miracle. He co-edited and co-finalized, among others, Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, the International Situation and Security Strategy, and International Strategy and Revolution in Military Affairs. In 2012, he received an Award for a Special Contribution to Translation by the TAC.
On Aug. 4, 2017, in an interview with China.org.cn and Beijing Chinese-Foreign Translation & Information Service Co., Ltd. (CTIS) at his home, Mr. Lin Wusun, now 89, talked about his career of translation and international communication.
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| Lin grew up in the years of the war against Japanese aggression, and saw with his own eyes the suffering of his homeland from foreign invasion. At the age of 18, he went to the United States to advance his education, determined to do something for China and to change the country for the better with what he could acquire during his study. He chose philosophy as his major, hoping that he could bring home advanced thinking to help China in moving forward. He also kept himself informed on what was happening around the world by reading the latest publications and listening to the radio. [Photo by Zhang Liying/China.org.cn] |
