Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

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    This book is published with the generous assistance of China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, Beijing Normal University’s College of Chinese Language and Literature, the University of Oklahoma’s College of Arts and Sciences, and World Literature Today magazine.
    The translator gratefully acknowledges the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for its generous support.
    This translation is dedicated to the memory of Michael Henry Heim, master translator and dear friend.
    First published in Chinese in 2001 as Tanxiang xing . English eidition copyright © 2013 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblence to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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    For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, University of Oklahoma Press, 2800 Venture Drive, Norman, Oklahoma 73069 or email [email protected]
    ISBN 978-0-8061-4339-2 (paperback : alk. paper)
    ISBN 978-0-8061-8881-2 (ebook : mobipocket)
    ISBN 978-0-8061-8882-9 (ebook : epub)
    Sandalwood Death: A Novel is Volume 2 in the Chinese Literature Today Book Series.
    This eBook was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [email protected]

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“The finest play ever staged cannot compete with the spectacle of a public slicing”
    Zhao Jia

Translator’s Note
    The challenges for the translator of Mo Yan’s powerful historical novel begin with the title, Tanxiang xing , whose literal meaning is “sandalwood punishment” or, in an alternate reading, “sandalwood torture.” For a work so utterly reliant on sound, rhythm, and tone, I felt that neither of those served the novel’s purpose. At one point, the executioner draws out the name of the punishment he has devised (fictional, by the way) for ultimate effect: “Tan—xiang—xing!” Since the word “sandalwood” already used up the three original syllables, I needed to find a short word to replicate the Chinese as closely as possible. Thus: “Sandal—wood—death!”
    Beyond that, as the novelist makes clear in his “Author’s Note,” language befitting the character and status of the narrators in Parts One and Three helps give the work its special quality of sound. Adjusting the register for the various characters, from an illiterate, vulgar butcher to a top graduate of the Qing Imperial Examination, without devolving to American street lingo or becoming overly Victorian, has been an added challenge. Finally, there are the rhymes. Chinese rhymes far more easily than English, and Chinese opera has always employed rhyme in nearly every line, whatever the length. I have exhausted my storehouse of rhyming words in translating the many arias, keeping as close to the meaning as possible or necessary.
    As with all languages, some words, some terms, simply do not translate. They can be defined, described, and deconstructed, but they steadfastly resist translation. Many words and terms from a host of languages have found their way into English and settled in comfortably. Most of those from Chinese, it seems, date from foreign imperialists’ and missionaries’ unfortunately misread or misheard Chinese-isms: “coolie,” “gung ho,” “rickshaw” (actually, that comes via Japanese), “godown,” “kungfu,” and so on. I think it is time to update and increase the meager list, and to that end, I have left a handful of terms untranslated; a glossary appears at the end of the book.