"Which one is Pan Xu?" Zhang Tan received Ma Weiwei's notice and was a little puzzled.

Ma Weiwei immediately explained: "Pan Xu was born in Cambodia Chinese, and later went to France and opened a publishing house in France. ”

Cambodia was once under French rule for a long time, and many Cambodians can speak French, which is a relatively widespread language in the region. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" became popular in Asia, and a large number of people in Cambodia, which is influenced by the Chinese cultural circle, are also interested in this novel.

So someone translated it into French and published a pirated copy.

Pan Xu also saw pirated novels in French, and the story content of the book was extremely attractive to him, but the French version was pirated after all, irregular, the translation was rude, and many places were not grammatical, worse than machine translation. Fortunately, Pan Xu understands Chinese and has long read the Chinese version.

After being deeply attracted by the novel, Pan Xu always wanted to promote "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" to France, and he wanted to publish a formal French translation.

But the French don't know much about "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", and Pan Xu didn't dare to make a rash mistake, so he decided to meet Zhang Tan and discuss the translation work with Zhang Tan, and also discuss martial arts culture by the way.

Boss Pan is obsessed with martial arts.

Zhang Tan readily agreed to meet and made an appointment with Pan Xu in a Western restaurant in Hexi, chatting while eating.

In fact, Zhang Tan did not have much hope for French publishing, and Chinese martial arts novels are really a little incomprehensible to Westerners. The breadth and profundity of Chinese culture, as well as the spirit of chivalry, are not something that Westerners can understand. Westerners like martial arts, and generally like that kind of fighting action.

And not the spirit carried in martial arts.

This is a cultural surprise. Western culture is always very direct, Eastern culture is always very subtle.

"My family moved to Cambodia during the Republic of China, I grew up speaking Chinese and French when I was a child, and I went to France when I became an adult, but I have always liked Chinese culture, and martial arts novels are my favorite pastime. I own a bookstore in France. Mainly engaged in the publication of Chinese publications. ”

Pan Xu is a very elegant and bookish middle-aged man, about forty years old, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, not much different from Chinese.

He is the owner of Fengyou Bookstore: "I used to bring some simplified and traditional Chinese versions of Chinese from here to sell, and your novels were very popular with Chinese people there. ”

Speaking of Fengyou Bookstore, Zhang Tan was very surprised, because this bookstore is very legendary and famous. Almost everyone in France knows Fengyou Bookstore, which is the largest bookstore in France and the whole of Europe that publishes and sells Chinese books and periodicals.

It can be said to be an oasis of Chinese spiritual life and culture in Europe. Pan Xu, the owner of the bookstore, has grown Fengyou Bookstore to its current status after 30 years of development, publishing 50 to 70 China-related books every year.

As early as 1997, Pan Xu was awarded the "Knight of Literature and Art" medal by the French Ministry of Culture, and this year he won the "Special Contribution Award for Chinese Books" issued by the General Administration of Press and Publication of China.

"There was a lot of pressure to win the award, and I thought I had to do well. Do better. Pan Xu said with some emotion.

Zhang Tan has always had a good impression of this kind of Chinese who promote Chinese culture. These people are a thousand times better than those Chinese who desperately slander China when they go abroad.

At the moment, he also said with some emotion: "It is precisely because of the efforts of people like Mr. Pan who have worked hard for Sino-French exchanges that Chinese culture can go out and let the world see the other side of China." ”

"I'm just doing my part."

The two politely exchanged their respective bulls for a while, and then turned to the topic. Pan Xu said: "Actually, I have read your novels for a long time, since "The Four Famous Capture of the Kanto", I have procurement channels in Xiangxiang and Taiwan, and I often purchase some martial arts novels in the past, and I have brought your novels over every time in the past few years. How much to bring, how much to be robbed. ”

After a pause, Pan Xu said: "When I went back to Cambodia last year, I saw a French translation of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", and there were too many grammatical translation errors, so I thought that I should publish a set of standardized translations. I was going to talk to you about it and express my commitment to publishing. But last year was the Sino-French Year of Culture, and I had to help China publish more than 50 sets of books, so I didn't have time. Now that I'm done, I'm here. ”

Zhang Tan was very moved by Pan Xu's decision, but he still had some concerns: "To be honest, I am open to publishing foreign language versions, and I also hope that my novels can be translated into many languages and affect more people." But let's talk about a real problem, I'm afraid that if it is translated, it will not sell well in Western countries. ”

Western Chinese, basically read the simplified and Chinese traditional Chinese version, foreigners can't understand martial arts, foreign language versions can only hehe.

But Pan Xu said firmly: "I choose to publish novels, there are only two criteria, one is to be able to make money, and the other is valuable." I love books, so as long as I think a book is valuable, it doesn't make money, and I'm willing to publish it. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" I think is the pinnacle of martial arts novels, and I would love to publish it. ”

Pan Xu is a bit willful.

However, as a major seller of books in China and France, he should not be short of money and capricious. Moreover, he will first apply for a publication fund from the French Ministry of Culture and Education, and the French government has a special fund for supporting the translation and publication of excellent foreign works.

In view of this, Zhang Tan had nothing to say, and immediately gave very preferential conditions, authorizing Fengyou Bookstore to publish the French version of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" for free. The French edition requires a large number of people to translate, and the publishing fund alone cannot provide much support.

Of course, the contract also stipulates that if the sales figures of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" are good and can make money, Zhang Tan will be paid a certain amount of royalties.

So far, compared with Oxford University Press, which has not yet moved on the English publishing work, it is the French publishing work that has taken the lead.

The translation work cannot be completed in a day or two, and Fengyou Bookstore cannot devote all the translators to "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", which will take at least one or two years, or even more.

This is a very helpless thing, after all, the difficulty of translating Chinese into foreign languages is not one star and two stars, but five stars.

But this is another big step forward in Zhang Tan's novel career.

……

Xu was influenced by his novels and began to go to the Western world, and Zhang Tan has been very excited these days. Typing on the keyboard every day, the story of "Heaven and Dragon Slayer" turns into square words like a spring.

This novel is also published in separate volumes, and the manuscript of more than 400,000 words written in front of it has been revised and handed over to Joint Publishing for publication. With Zhang Tan's codeword speed, he doesn't worry about delaying the manuscript at all, and he can rest assured that he will publish.

"So."

Raising his head from the keyboard and stretching, Zhang Tan yelled at the ceiling: "Is school going to start again!" (To be continued.) )