On 21 August, the 12th Special Book Award of China was held in Beijing, China. Prof. Luminiţa Bălan, Co-Director of the Confucius Institute at University of Bucharest, Romania (the CI at Bucharest), won the 12th Special Book Award of China.
Set up in 2005 by the Chinese government, the award was dedicated to foreign writers, translators and publishers who have made outstanding contributions to introducing China, translating and publishing Chinese books, and promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. The award has been successfully held for 11 times and have awarded a total of 108 winners from 44 countries around the world. This year, 15 people had been selected out of 240 candidates for this award.
Prof. Luminiţa Bălan made a speech on behalf of the winners. In her speech, she emphasized that this award encouraged her to make greater efforts and to continue translating Chinese literary works, so as to expand the influence of Chinese culture in Romania, and to make greater contributions to the cultural exchange between China and Romania. As the third Romanian winner to receive this honor and also the youngest one, she regarded this award as a great recognition of her work. “Thanks, China”, Prof. Luminiţa Bălan said excitedly.
(Prof. Luminiţa Bălan was delivering a speech)
In her speech, Prof. Luminiţa Bălan also said that the CI at Bucharest played a very important role in promoting the exchange of Chinese and Romanian literatures. The CI at Bucharest and the Romanian Writers Association established a partnership and regularly organized activities like seminars on translation of Chinese contemporary literature and new book debuts. Many famous Chinese writers had visited the CI. The CI is an irreplaceable bridge and link for China-Romania cultural exchanges. Mo Yan’s novels “The Song of Paradise Garlic”, “The Wine Country”, “The Woman Holding Flowers”, Yu Hua’s “Xu Sanguan Selling Blood”, and Acheng’s “Tree King”, “Kid of the Kid” were translated by Prof. Luminiţa Bălan and were published in Romania. The Romanian versions of Liu Zhenyun’s book "I am not Pan Jinlian" and Mo Yan’s short story are expected to be available in 2019. We believe that in the future, there will be more excellent Chinese literature published in Romania and Prof. Luminiţa Bălanw will achieve even greater achievements in translation.
