Carlos Rojas (born 1970 in Atlanta, Georgia)[1] is an American sinologist and translator. He is currently Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. He is a cultural historian and his work and teachings primarily focus on Chinese culture. He also teaches the subjects of film, gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1995 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2000.[2] Before his professorship at Duke, Rojas was Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Film at the University of Florida.[3] Rojas lives in Durham, North Carolina.[1]
Career
editCarlos Rojas and Eileen Cheng-yin Chow translated Yu Hua's novel Brothers. Their translation was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.[4] Rojas has also translated several books by Chinese novelist and short story writer Yan Lianke.[5][6][7] His translation of Yan Lianke's The Four Books was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.[8] Isabel Hilton of The Observer called it "impeccably" translated.[9] His translation of Yan Lianke's The Explosion Chronicles was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize,[10] the 2017 Pen Translation Prize,[11] and the 2017 National Translation Award in Prose.[12] The Economist praised Rojas' "robust and well-paced translation."[13] The Guardian called his translation a "model of clarity."[14]
Rojas served on the jury of the 2015 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature and the 2020 Dream of the Red Chamber Award.
In 2010, Rojas published The Great Wall: A Cultural History through Harvard University Press. The book is a survey of the Great Wall of China and its function and significance. In it, Rojas examines allusions to the Wall from various historical texts and cultural works.[15][16]
Selected bibliography
editBooks
edit- Rojas, Carlos (2008). The Naked Gaze: Reflections on Chinese Modernity. Harvard University Asia Center.
- Rojas, Carlos (2010). The Great Wall: A Cultural History. Harvard University Press.[17][18]
- Rojas, Carlos (2015). Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China. Harvard University Press.[19][20][21]
Translations
edit- Yu, Hua (2009). Brothers: A Novel. Translated by Rojas, Carlos; Chow, Eileen Cheng-Yin. Pantheon Books.
- Yan, Lianke (2012). Lenin's Kisses: A Novel. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
- Yan, Lianke (2015). The Four Books: A Novel. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
- Yan, Lianke (2015). Marrow: A Novella. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Penguin/Random House.
- Yan, Lianke (2016). The Explosion Chronicles: A Novel. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove Atlantic Press.
- Ng, Kim Chew (2016). Slow Boat to China and Other Stories. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Columbia University Press.
- Jia, Pingwa (2017). The Lantern Bearer: A Novel. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. CN Times Books.
- Yan, Lianke (2017). The Years, Months, Days: A Novella. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. The Text Publishing Company.
- Yan, Lianke (2017). The Years, Months, Days: Two Novellas. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
- Yan, Lianke (2018). The Day the Sun Died. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
- Yan, Lianke (2020). Three Brothers: Memories of My Family. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
- Yan, Lianke (2020). Hard Like Water. Translated by Rojas, Carlos. Grove/Atlantic Press.
As editor
edit- Wang, David Der-wei; Rojas, Carlos, eds. (2007). Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History. Duke University Press.
- Rojas, Carlos; Chow, Eileen Cheng-yin, eds. (2009). Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon. Routledge.
- Rojas, Carlos; Chow, Eileen Cheng-yin, eds. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas. Oxford University Press.
- Rojas, Carlos; Bachner, Andrea, eds. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures. Oxford University Press.
- Rojas, Carlos; Litzinger, Ralph A., eds. (2016). Ghost Protocol Development and Displacement in Global China. Duke University Press.
- Chen, Jianhua (2018). Rojas, Carlos (ed.). Revolution and Form: The Development of Modernity in Mao Dun's Early Fiction, 1927–1930. Brill.
- Rojas, Carlos; Sung, Meihwa, eds. (2020). Imagining Communities: Reading Contemporary China Against the Grain. Routledge.
Academic articles
edit- Rojas, Carlos (October 2016). "Language, ethnicity, and the politics of literary taxonomy: Ng Kim Chew and Mahua literature". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 131 (5): 1316–1327. doi:10.1632/pmla.2016.131.5.1316. S2CID 151523919.
- Rojas, Carlos (March 2018). "A World Republic of Southern [Sinophone] Letters". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 30 (1): 42–62.
References
edit- ^ a b "The Man Booker International Prize 2017 Longlist Announced". thebookerprizes.com. March 15, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "Carlos Rojas". scholars.duke.edu. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "Writing Taiwan". Duke University Press.
- ^ Ehrenreich, Ben (February 1, 2009). "'Brothers: A Novel' by Yu Hua". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "The Explosion Chronicles interview". thebookerprizes.com. April 19, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Wasserstrom, Jeffrey (July 8, 2015). "On Yan Lianke's Fiction: Q & A with Translator and Literary Scholar Carlos Rojas". BLARB. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Oliver, Graham (September 26, 2016). "Translating China's Modern History: An Interview with Carlos Rojas". blog.pshares.org. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Cain, Sian (April 13, 2016). "'Exhilarating' Man Booker International shortlist spans the world". The Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Hilton, Isabel (March 29, 2015). "The Four Books review – Yan Lianke holds China to account for Maoist atrocities". The Observer. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Cain, Sian (March 15, 2017). "Amos Oz and Ismail Kadare named on Man Booker international prize longlist". The Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "2017 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE". PEN America. January 18, 2018. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "Announcing the 2017 National Translation Award Longlists for Poetry and Prose!". American Literary Translators Association. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "Build, and they will come". The Economist. October 13, 2016. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Hickling, Alfred (March 30, 2017). "The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke review – boomtime in rural China". The Guardian. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Mills, Kerrie (February 15, 2011). "'The Great Wall: A Cultural History' Explores the Imagination Wrought from the Very Structure". PopMatters. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ "The Great Wall — Carlos Rojas". Harvard University Press. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
- ^ Cassel, Pär (2012). "Review of The Great Wall: A Cultural History". Pacific Affairs. 85 (2): 395–397. ISSN 0030-851X. JSTOR 23266860.
- ^ Wood, Frances (August 2011). "Review of The Great Wall: A Cultural History". The Journal of Asian Studies. 70 (3): 822–823. doi:10.1017/S0021911811001124. ISSN 0021-9118. S2CID 163110409.
- ^ Fearnley, Lyle (2017). "Homesickness: Culture, Contagion and National Transformation in Modern China, written by Carlos Rojas". Asian Journal of Social Science. 45 (6): 794–795. doi:10.1163/15685314-04506010. ISSN 1568-4849.
- ^ Wentao, Jiang (2016-08-25). "Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China, written by Carlos Rojas". Journal of Chinese Humanities. 2 (2): 241–245. doi:10.1163/23521341-12340037. ISSN 2352-1333.
- ^ Tsai, Chien-hsin (2016-11-02). "Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern China, written by Carlos Rojas". Journal of Chinese Overseas. 12 (2): 374–377. doi:10.1163/17932548-12341337. ISSN 1793-0391.