Bulletin Autumn 1975

the magazine enjoys local bookstore sales that amount to somewhat less than a half of its total circulation. More interesting, however, is the geographic distribution of its subscribers (based on July 1975 figures): U.S./Canada 68% Asia 2 2% U.K./Europe 7% Australia/New Zealand 3% What portion of this subscription list is institutional (libraries, universities, etc.) and what proportion belongs to individuals? Institutions 2 5% Individuals 7 5% What about the division between Chinese subscribers (in Hong Kong and elsewhere) and Westerners? Chinese 38% Westerners 6 2% There is much room for expansion in each of these groups. For instance, a potentially attractive intellectual and bilingual readership in Taiwan is hardly tapped due to currency remittance and other difficulties. Institutions, especially in the English- speaking world, if systematically canvassed, should yield a much larger percentage of long-term subscribers than shown. With its proliferating interest in Chinese studies, America will remain a fruitful source of Renditions readers as it has been a proving ground for the majority of our contributors. Recently, there arrived in the offices of the Translation Centre at C U HK a bulk order of 25 copies of Renditions No. 2 (Special Fiction Issue) from the University of Texas at Arlington, to be rush-delivered by air. Evidently some summer course in Chinese Literature is assigning the magazine as supplementary reading. From the beginning, Renditions’ usefulness to students is enhanced by the fact that a number of pages in each issue are devoted to printing the original, Chinese texts of its translations. It should be a logical step to make this more of a bilingual publication when there is a demand for such, backed up by subscription orders in large numbers, from the many Western universities and colleges that offer programmes in Chinese studies! The “Renditions” Experience In these days of increasing intercultural communication more emphasis than ever is being placed on translation, and Renditions appears to be in the forefront of this trend. In August 1975, a "Chinese-English Translation Conference", sponsored by The Asia Foundation, was held in Hong Kong to stimulate an exchange of ideas on the "linguistic, practical, manpower and consumption aspects" of the work. Among more than thirty participants and observers invited to this seminar from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the U.S., U . K . and West Germany, five were associated in one way or another with Renditions. Many of the problems discussed at the conference are regularly encountered by the editors of Renditions from one issue to another. Our experience will prove valuable, not only to Chinese-English translators but also to workers in other languages. One of the more heartening things in this experience is the growing number of unsolicited manuscripts we receive from all over. They have readily overflowed the pages of a semiannual and indicated a need for other outlets. In 1975, plans were made to start a series of "Renditions Books" to publish translations of merit, some of which may have appeared only partially in the magazine. The first of these volumes, A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry, is scheduled for publication in early 1976 and will be distributed by the University of Washington Press. The second, An Anthology of Yuan Plays, will be brought out later in association with the Columbia University Press. These books, like the parent magazine, will take advantage of the excellent facilities available in Hong Kong for Chinese and English typesetting and carry the original texts along with the English translations. A measure of the warmth with which Renditions has been greeted may be seen from two review articles. A young Chinese scholar, writing in a leading Taipei newspaper, hailed the new journal as a vehicle for "exporting Chinese culture", one that might do much to "redress the imbalance" in the existing East-West cultural interflow. The China Quarterly, published from London, welcomes us as a "new contribution to belles lettres". " A most attractive feature," the article continues, "is its catering both to those who are highly proficient in literary Chinese, and to those who are only slightly so or know no Chinese at a l l . . . . How pleasant to be reminded that Chinese can be fun." 11