The crowd-puller on the first day of the World Book Fair, 2016 was Chinese history and art. As a mark of the mutual cultural roots, China has been invited as the guest of honour at the book fair in Delhi for the first time.
The relationship between India and China dates back to more than 2,000 years and having the latter as the guest of honour in the World Book Fair is an extension of the cultural bond shared in the form of books.
Some Chinese delegates at the fair said the main motive is to share Chinese art and culture with India, and at the same time taking home knowledge about India’s rich cultural heritage. Sahitya Akademi, in collaboration with Sichuan People publishing house, is working towards translating Indian literary and non-fiction works into Chinese and vice-versa.
Sahitya Akademi secretary K.S. Rao said, ”Earlier, Chinese works would be translated to English and Hindi but now the trend has changed. We want to work more towards making our work available to China in their language.”
In May 2013, India and China had signed an MoU on cooperation in mutual translation and publication of classic and contemporary works. Some Indian books listed for translation this year are Prithviraj Raaso, Kabir Granthavaali and Bhartendu Rachna Sanchayan, among others. Chinese works such as Xi Xiang Ji and Dou e Yuan, commonly translated as The Injustice to Dou E, by authors Wang Shifu and Guan Hanqing are on the waiting list.
Another delegate, Liu Feng of Phoenix Publishing house, one of the largest in China, said they deal largely with a mixture of educational fiction and non-fiction books on various fields such as history, medicine, culture, science and embroidery amongst others. “I will go and see only Indian literature for the rest of the days” said Mr Feng, showing great enthusiasm
