A bilingual collection of poems by renowned Chinese writer Lu Xun has been reinterpreted through the ancient art of seal script, bringing together poetry, calligraphy, seal engraving, and English translation in a new volume unveiled in Beijing on Sept 19.
The Poetry of Lu Xun was launched at the China International Publishing Center at an event hosted and published by Foreign Languages Press. About 150 people from the publishing, cultural, art, and media sectors, as well as readers, attended.
Ma Rujun, president of Foreign Languages Press, says that seal script, regarded as a source of Chinese calligraphy, carries the memory of thousands of years of Chinese civilization.
He notes that the combination of Lu Xun's international literary influence, the artistic appeal of seal script and the translations by British Sinologist W. J. F. Jenner and Wang Xiaohui makes the book both readable and visually engaging.
The original poems, seal script, seal engraving, and English translation interact with and complement one another in the same book, Ma says, adding that the approach broadens the aesthetic possibilities of books as cultural products and offers a reference for innovation in publishing.
