I was up at the 万圣书店 this afternoon, probably my favourite Beijing bookshop. It focuses on arts and humanities, and has a great range of books on film and music, art, literature, social sciences. It also carries a lot of western works translated into Chinese, and it’s interesting to see what people are finding worth translating into Chinese.
The numerous management textbooks aren’t too suprising – if you want to read The 7 Bad Habits of Highly Underpaid Managers or Chicken Soup for the CEO’s Soul in Chinese, look no further. Culture makes some inroads too, with Henry Rollins being one of the less expected cultural ambassadors. Having died in 1997, Allen Ginsberg is unable to tell us what he thinks of sharing a shelf with Mr Rollins, nor of what he makes of the translation of Howl
- I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, -
我看见这一代最杰出的头脑毁于疯狂，挨着饿歇斯底里浑身赤裸
拖着自己走过黎明时分的黑人街巷寻找狠命的一剂
There are plenty of books on politics too – though you have to wonder how much of books like Chinese Politics made it through the translation process.
I’m unlikely to read any of these in Chinese. I’d be unlikely to read any of them in English, to be honest.
万圣书店 is a couple of minutes walk west of Beijing University’s East gate, and has a website that doesn’t work. There’s also a cafe attached where you can browse through your purchases.