Eva Lüdi Kong Explained

Eva Lüdi Kong (born 1968) is a Swiss sinologist, translator, and cultural mediator.[1]

Life

Eva Lüdi Kong studied Sinology in Zurich and Chinese calligraphy and printmaking at the Chinese University of the Arts in Hangzhou (Zhejiang). She completed further studies in classical Chinese literature at Zhejiang University with a master's degree. During her studies she worked as a language teacher, interpreter and translator. Lüdi Kong lived and worked from 1990 to 2016 mainly in China,[2] where she was also active in teaching and research.

Today Lüdi Kong works primarily as a freelance translator and in cultural mediation in Switzerland and Germany. For the first complete German translation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, she received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2017. Lüdi Kong worked for seventeen years on the translation of the work that was written by Wu Cheng'en in the 16th century at the time of the Ming Dynasty and is one of the four classical novels in Chinese literature.[3] The Reclam publishing house invested 80,000 euros into the publication of the 1300-page work that weighs 1.5 kg. Lüdi Kong considers The Journey to the West to be a "joint work of many generations of storytellers" and, compared to the other three classic novels, easy to read. She compared the novel in a scientific paper, among others. with Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, since a search for the "right path" is also described there.[4]

Works

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Porträt . 2021-02-03 . 2017-03-25 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170325024302/http://www.preis-der-leipziger-buchmesse.de/de/Preistraeger/Eva-Luedi-Kong/ . bot: unknown . bei preis-der-leipziger-buchmesse.de (retrieved 24 March 2017).
  2. http://www.china-kulturvermittlung.de/kontakt/lebenslauf Lebenslauf
  3. Web site: Interview mit Eva Lüdi Kong: Heraus aus dem "Chinakäfig". Goethe-Institut China. 2017-06-29. Goethe-Institut China.
  4. Freund, Wieland: Als die Chinesen den Roman erfanden. In: Welt am Sonntag, 19 March 2017, Nr. 12, S. 59.