Eva Maria Schestag Geb Scheucher

Independent scholar, translator, Sinologist

Nationality: German

Languages: German, English, Chinese, Italian

Profile

Eva Schestag started to study Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese at the University of Munich in 1982 and then continued her studies at Nanjing University (China), Zurich University (Switzerland), and Chinese Culture University (Taiwan). She now lives as an independent scholar and freelance translator in Frankfurt. With S. Fischer she published in 2009 an Anthology of Classical Chinese Literature in 4 volumes, and in 2017 The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the first complete German translation of the historical novel by Luo Guanzhong. Besides her interest in the field of Classical Chinese Studies, she translates legal texts from and into English.

Q&A

Q1: Could you please briefly introduce the market situation of the publishing industry in your country?

1. Total sales of the German book market in 2016: • retail book trade 4.42 billion euros (48.2%), • publishers direct 1.91 billion euros (20.9%), • internet book trade 1.60 billion euros (17.4%), • other points of sale 931 million euros (10.1%), • mail-order book trade 118 million euros (1. %), • department stores 113 million euros (1.2%), • book clubs 77 million euros (0.8%).

2. Fixed book price principle (by law)

3. E-books: 4.5 percent of total sales

4. 89,506 new titles (in 2015)

5. Fiction (14,165 titles), German literature (10,638 titles), children's and youth literature (9,081 titles), school/educational books (4,353 titles)

6. Translations (2015): 10,179 titles were newly translated into German or reprinted

7. Licenses (2016): 7,521 licenses were sold to other countries (a plus of 16.7 percent) (out of which 2,677 children's and youth literature)

Q2: Have you ever read any works written by Chinese authors?

I have read the most important works of ancient and classical Chinese literature.

Q3: What kinds of Chinese literature (genres) do you prefer to introduce to your country? Have you ever recommended any before?

I have recently recommended translating the complete work of Su Dongpo. I have recently recommended translating the complete The Book of Songs (Shiji). I have recently recommended translating the poems of Hanshan (from Tang Dynasty). For my last project I had recommended a translation of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Q4: Which Chinese literature books do you think could be bestsellers around the world? Or could have a corner in the global market?

A modern graphic novel based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Q5: What kinds of problems do you think the translating or publishing processes of Chinese literature exist overseas?

There are almost no grants (i.e. financial support) for the translation of classical (i.e. not contemporary) literary (i.e. not academic) works.