Egyptian young Sinologist Mai Ashour. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

What is the biggest difficulty you face in translation?

Translation is not just transferring a language into other language, but it needs reading and understanding the culture and history as well. Of course Chinese language is very hard, but the hardest part is understanding different backgrounds related to culture, history, society, Chinese thinking and philosophy.

I started translating some writings of Shi Tie Sheng and one of them was Woyuditan, or Me and The Temple of Earth, in which he talks about the temple of earth and describes that place that influenced him.But when I began translating it I found a bit hard to imagine what he was describing because I have never been there, so I decided to go to the Temple of Earth to see and feel the place.

How do you choose the works that you want to translate? Is it more of a personal preference or a decision based on other factors?

The content is the most important for me. I read the work and when it attracts me, I start translating it, no matter who is the writer, or whether it is modern or classical work.

Sometimes it does happen that I translate according to what I need to know about Chinese culture, thinking and society. And other times I translate according my personal mood, and in this case it is usually prose or poem. I feel that Chinese literature really touches my heart.

What are the authors that are popular with the Egyptian translators? Is Chinese literature popular with the Egyptian readers? Do you see a rise of interest in Chinese literature since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in literature?

I think the most famous author in Egypt right now is Mo Yan, after he won the award a lot of translators started to translate his works.

Yes of course Chinese literature is becoming more popular in Egypt nowadays, people are eager to read about Asian literature, especially Chinese literature, because they think China is similar to Egypt, has a long history and great civilization. They are interested to understand and know more about it, and I can see this clearly when I translate a Chinese short story or a prose, a lot of friends and readers start to give me feedbacks, and ask me about the author and about Chinese culture.

Definitely, a lot of people started to read Mo Yan's work after he won the Nobel prize and also started to get much interested in China and Chinese culture.