Fresh take on Dutch classic fairy tale

The new Chinese translation of Little Johannes was published recently, around 90 years after late Chinese writer Lu Xun's original was first published. [Photo provided to China Daily]

As the planner behind Selected Works of Lu Xun, Jing first read Lu Xun's translation of Little Johannes in 2011.

"It's like a pretty person in ancient clothes. No matter how antiquated the clothes are, the pure beauty inside cannot be hidden," Jing says.

Lu Xun first read Little Johannes in 1906 in a German literature magazine and became fascinated by the story. It took him 20 years to translate it from German and publish the story in Chinese.

Inspired by the fairy tale, Lu Xun set aside his sharpened style and wrote a soft prose collection entitled Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk.

Lu Xun even refused a nomination for the Nobel Prize in literature because of the book, which he said he could improve on and regarded unfair to accept since Eeden had never been awarded the prize.

Lu Xun's translation from German was written in a half-literary, half-vernacular style, so Jing decided to translate the work into contemporary language to allow more people to enjoy its beauty.

Starting in 2015, it took Jing two years to translate the book from English. Since the Dutch version could not be found in China, she enlisted the help of the Dutch Literature Fund.

"They sent me precious material in English about the writer's life and comments about him from contemporary writers," Jing says.

Li Xinyu, a scholar of Lu Xun and professor at Nankai University, says: "Jing Wen's translation is fluent and vivid as the original writing of the book and also keeps the essence of Lu Xun's version."