Chinese writer Mo Yan was delighted on October 11, 2012, when he received the news that he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Watching on from far away in Europe, linguistics and literature professor Juan José Ciruela from the University of Granada began researching the new laureate. Ciruela’s Spanish translation of Mo’s novel Thirteen Steps was published three years later.
Direct translation from Chinese
Ciruela says translating the novel was an interesting challenge. After Mo received the Nobel Prize, many of his works were introduced to Spain. However, as most of them had been translated first into English and then from directly from Chinese, he accepted the mission immediately. Ciruela wanted to make a small contribution to the dissemination of modern Chinese literature, even if it presented difficulties like a heavy workload within a short time limit.