The notoriously difficult to translate "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce has
finally been translated into Mandarin.

Joyce scholar Liang Sun-Jie 梁孫傑 published the first full-length
multilingual Sinitic translation in the world- that's the 21st complete
edition worldwide.

Liang's translation includes Taiwan's Chinese languages, as well as
Indigenous, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and other languages to reflect
Joyce's linguistic experimentation.

He described the translation effort as formidable not only because of its use
of allusions, but also because of the shifting narrators and the interweaving
of fact with fiction.

Liang said that his translation of the novel is steeped in Taiwanese culture,
given that it evokes the multilingual spirit of the country.

Additionally, he said, the storyline of the novel in some ways mirrors
Taiwanese history.

Readers may re-Joyce at the translation and delight in an Irish classic.

(AH-CNA)