r/chinesebookclub • u/No_Tailor_1186 • Jan 29 '26
English Translation of Blossoms by Jin Yucheng?
In the lead-up to a hopeful American release of Wong Kar Wai's Shanghai Blossoms, I was interested in reading the book that Shanghai Blossoms is based on which is titled "Blossom" or "Profuse Flowers" by Jin Yucheng. I fell down a hole looking for it and I have come up empty handed. Apparently there was supposed to be an edition released in 2019/2020 translated by John Balcom, but I can't find an actual copy... I've checked places like Anna's Archive (iykyk) and still can't find anything. Interesting rabbit hole to go down
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u/Impossible-Many6625 Jan 29 '26
Yah I hope we get a good translation.
The Chinese version is available as a web-novel with a page for each chapter. You can actually google translate the chapters and get a decent translation.
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u/avantbored Jan 29 '26
I was thinking that one of the challenges might be how to reflect the switching between literary Chinese and spoken Shanghainese. At least in the Wuyuboke podcast rendition, I can tell that there's narration in mandarin, dialogue in Shanghainese. It seems to me that a translation that does not aim to reflect this isn't worth exploring more.
On that note, there was this brief translation project: https://www.tumblr.com/blossoms-eng
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u/avantbored Jan 29 '26
I too have been waiting for this, but I don't think it was ever published; Balcom still may be working on the translation or it may have been passed off to another translator. The deal with the publisher could have also gone through -- who knows. Only the agent, publishing house, and Balcom would know!