THE fact that there are more than 1 billion Mandarin speakers and about 400 million Spanish speakers in the world doesn’t mean there are massive exchanges of ideas and texts between the two languages.

    In terms of published writing, there are few translations of works between the two languages. But that situation could soon change, China Daily reported.

    “We want to read all about China in the last 100 years, whether it’s works by Lu Xun or Mo Yan, but we don’t have enough access,” Monica Ching Hernandez, a Mexican publisher and a professor of Chinese literature at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, said at a recent foreign consultants seminar in Beijing. “We need introductions to Chinese philosophy, art, fiction, non-fiction, everything.”

    In short, she said, there should be an across-the-board effort to translate Chinese works of at least the past century into Spanish.

    “The Spanish-speaking population knows little about great works from China. It’s far from what we would like to see and a lot has to be done,” said Chen Yingming, deputy director of the department of foreign exchange with the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

    Translators, publishers and the government are working to address the problem.

    Last year, the China Intercontinental Press launched an ongoing series of translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It’s part of the China Book International campaign, supported by the media administration.

    Its latest effort is the Spanish version of “Plot Against,” a fictional espionage work by Mai Jia. By the end of this year, the Spanish versions of “The Last Quarter of the Moon,” an epic narrative of the Ewenki ethnic group in northeastern China by Chi Zijian; a collection of short stories by writers of Shaanxi Province origin; and a selection of poetry by Cai Tianxin also will be released.

    On the other end of the exchange spectrum, more translations of Spanish works will come to China. In Mexico alone, the country’s National Art and Culture Foundation is endorsing translation projects for the purpose of Sino-Mexico communication. The subsidy could go up to US$500,000.

    (SD-Agencies)