93-year-old Xu Yuanchong wins 2014 FIT translation award

A ceremony awarding Chinese translation master Xu Yuanchong the 2014 International Federation of Translators (FIT) Aurora Borealis Prize for Outstanding Translation of Fiction Literature was held at the China International Publishing Group Friday. FIT had previously announced that Xu had qualified for the award on August 2.

Xu is famous for translating ancient Chinese poems and the poems of Mao Zedong into English and French. He is one of the very few authorities on Chinese, English and French translation in the world.

Born in 1921, Xu entered the National Southwestern Associated University in 1938 and became friends with Yang Zhenning, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1957, and Wang Xiji, one of the founders of space technology in China. The two scientists came to the ceremony sharing their days in the university.

"In 1957, when Yang won the Nobel Prize, I had translated and published four books: one from Chinese to English, one from English to Chinese, one from French to Chinese and one from Chinese to French," Xu said during the ceremony. He joked that when the government introduced policy to quadruple production, he actively followed suit by quadrupling his translation work. To date, Xu has translated and published 132 books.

The Aurora Borealis Prize is awarded every three years, and is one of the highest honors in the field of international literature translation. Xu is the first Asian winner since the prize's establishment in 1999. FIT described Xu as having "devoted his career to building bridges among Chinese- English- and French-speaking peoples."