editor’s letter—

This issue of Spittoon Literary Magazine marks the beginning of a new direction. From this issue on, Spittoon will be dedicated to introducing the best emerging Chinese writers to English-speaking readers.

China's relationship with the English-speaking world is currently the subject of opposing narratives in both the Chinese and Western media. Western media coverage of China paints pictures of a country that is at times indifferent, at times threatening, and always one-dimensional. But for those of us who live here in China, there are much more interesting stories to be told.

In this issue's poetry and fiction, you will read about an unwelcome piano tuner, the uncomfortable proximity of the body, a man faced with the trials and tribulations of leaving his house, a phoenix visiting a pregnant woman, a mysterious Ahab-ian family friend, a poet doing an office job to pay the bills, and much more. 

Of course, we want to leave the telling of these stories up to Chinese writers, but that would be impossible without the mediation of translation. And, for Spittoon's editorial team, translation is the core of what we do. Each of these pieces is the product of many iterations, each of which has undergone thorough review by a team of editors and translators led by our inimitable Translations Editor, Stephen Nashef.

The process is rigorous. First, a native Chinese-speaking translator will read the piece and render it into English before sending it to a native English-speaking writer. The English-language writer will then "polish" the English text into a story or poem that is compelling as a piece of English-language poetry or prose. Of course, the English-language writers will inevitably have questions about the text, which they will address to Stephen and the Chinese-language translator(s).

What follows is a nuanced and endlessly interesting discussion of craft, translation, and semantics. Some excerpts: ". . . the tone is not urban in my view. . . Part of the force of the disruption lies in the straightforwardness with which he says things"; "this parenthesized birds-and-bats phrase should sound like something you might hear in a nature documentary (except for that strange verb 成为 'become')"; "to me it seems that the meaning of that English sentence doesn't really change that much if you add a 'forever' on the end, but it does harm the cadence. I don't necessarily think every Chinese word needs to be translated into English (一直 is also much lighter than 'forever')."

Stephen likes to jeer at the post-modern mantra that goes, "poetry is what is lost in translation,"and for good reason—he spent countless hours ensuring that our English translations conveyed the meaning, tone, feeling, texture, and all-around effect of the original. Literary translation is not only possible, it's artistically productive. Each English-language piece in this issue is enhanced by its translator's own artistry, as well as that of the original writer.

We hope Spittoon Literary Magazine will do something that no other existing publication is doing, which is to bring a diverse range of contemporary Chinese voices to a Western audience through literature and art that compels, innovates, and surprises. In doing so, we hope to advance the dialogue between China and the West because, let's be honest, both sides can get lost in translation. 

— SIMON SHIEH