Martin Woesler (born 29 September 1969 inMünster,West Germany) is a Germansinologist, cultural scientist andtranslator ofChinese literature.
Woesler translated works from the Chinese authorsLǔ Xùn 魯迅,Zhōu Zuòrén 周作人,Xǔ Dìshān 許地山,Yù Dáfū 郁達夫,Zhū Zìqīng 朱自清,Bīng Xīn 冰心,Bā Jīn 巴金,Qián Zhōngshū 錢鍾書,Wáng Měng 王蒙,Zhāng Jié 張洁,Liú Zàifù 劉再復,Jiǎ Píngwā 賈平凹, andHán Hán 韓寒 into English and German as well as ofCáo Xuěqín 曹雪芹 into German. Together with Rainer Schwarz he published the first complete translation of the Chinese novelThe Dream of the Red Chamber into German. Woesler made available a lot ofChinese literature for the first time in a Western language.
In China, Woesler documented a critical campaign against the liberal Minister of CultureWáng Měng 王蒙 and proved that this campaign was only superficially motivated by an interest in literature, whereas the actual motivation was political (Political literature in China 1991–1992, 1994). He turned the until then neglected genre of the Chinese essay into a modern tool to express the upcoming individualism in China before the eyes of the European and American China Studies (History of the Chinese essay, 3 vols., 1998). These short first-person narratives, which mostly appeared in newspapers between the May-4th-movement 1919 and the beginning of the 1930s, were a new form for the awaking civil society to express its views and feelings. From the 1930s until around 1979, the essay faced an ideological instrumentalization at the expense of its literary quality. Woesler drew attention to the essayistic work ofZhōu Zuòrén, the younger brother of Lu Xun, who was ostracized due to his positive attitude towards Japan and his independence from daily politics and propaganda. Woesler's re-evaluation of Zhou's work were confirmed by different scholars outside mainland China. In fact, Zhou's writing of intentionally unpolitical literature in a time when literature was instrumenalized, was a political statement by itself. Woeslers work in the tensional field between politics and literature stimulated further books on Zhou, mostly from North American sinologists, supporting the necessity to re-evaluate Zhou.
Since the 1980s, China sees the upcoming of a critical public again. Woesler sees here a parallel between the role of the internet since the 1990s and the newspapers between the 1910s and 1930s. In his books (China's digital dream 2002, and others), together with Chinese scholars, he came to the conclusion, that the internet in China has a more liberalizing impact on society than it has in more liberal countries.
In preparation of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009, when China was the guest of honor, Woesler categorized contemporaryChinese literature. He himself translated two very different novels for the Book Fair: The most uncontentious canonized classical novelDream of the Red Chamber byCao Xueqin, which has never been fully translated into German before, and one of the most contentious books of China today,Panda Sex byMian Mian. As the main trend ofChinese literature, Woesler sees young authors describing their everyday life in a rapidly and excitingly changing reality. The main motivation force of this literature is the alienation, initiated by urbanization and loss of orientation. Young Chinese do not live in and for the traditional family clan anymore, but are on their own. This has added a more critical and independent view toChinese literature. The stories are dealing with drugs abuse, alienation, singles and the world of dreams. This touches also Western readers of translations.
After the liberal 1980s, the 1990s saw a strong commercialization of literature due to an opening of the book market. Woesler sees the following trends: 'cult literature' such asGuo Jingming'sCry Me a River 悲伤逆流成河; vagabond literature such asXu Zechen'sRunning Through Beijing 跑步穿过中关村 andLiu Zhenyun'sThe Pickpockets 我叫刘跃; underground literature such asMian Mian'sPanda Sex 声名狼籍; 'longing for something' literature, divided in historicizing literature such asYu Dan'sConfucius in Your Heart 《論語》心得 andYi Zhongtian'sChinese History 易中天中華史; Tibetan literature withAlai; literature of the mega cities; women's literature withBi Shumin; and master narratives by narrators likeMo Yan'sLife and Death Are Wearing Me Out.[1]
However Chinese literature at the beginning of the 21st century shows signs of overcoming the commercialization of literature of the 1980s and 1990s. An example isHan Han's novelHis Land 他的国, which was written in a social critical surrealistic style against the uncritical mainstream, but ranked 1st in 2009 Chinese bestseller list.[2] The online literature plays a more important role.
In the field of cultural comparison Woesler has advanced the existing models by contributing descriptive, high-contrast examples of distant cultures, like the Anglo-American and the Chinese. Here he has enriched the theory ofcultureshocks with the termown culture shock, which describes the state of shock a person crossing cultures can suffer from when he returns to his own culture.[3] Woesler has set different traditional models of comparison of cultures in the framework of a related system and further developed them in front of the background of globalization, mobility, and the internet. In 2006, he developed the model ofculture maps, in which all cultural phenomena are positioned in a coordinate system and related with phenomena of other cultures.[4] Applying the model, even mixed cultures can be described better than with traditional models.
Interviews with Martin Woesler
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