Chinese readers to translate David Mitchell stories
Chinese social network Douban is hosting a competition for readers to translate excerpts from David Mitchell short stories "The Gardener" and "The Massive Rat."
The competition came about as a collaboration between "Cloud Atlas" author and two-time Booker Prize shortlistee David Mitchell, social networking service Douban (whose specialty is in books, movies, and music), UK innovations charity Nesta, and the British Council educational organization.
Visitors to the Douban site now have until August 30 to sumbit translations of the two Mitchell works, whose excerpts have been posted in English.
After a shortlisting process, each story's three best entries will then be put up to a public vote running from September 20 to October 6, with the winners announced on October 7.
All entrants recieve a 20 yuan Douban voucher, the runners-up an Ian McEwan e-book in English, and the winners net contracts to complete the Mitchell translations.
"Cloud Atlas" author and two-time Booker Prize shortlistee David Mitchell said that he was "excited by the possibilities for interfacing literature and social media which the project explores, and quietly delighted that my story has been chosen to play even a small role in the fertile matrix of Anglo-Chinese cultural connections."
cp/cm
