Lu Xun in Armenian Translation

You are cordially invited to a talk on “Lu Xun in Armenian Translation” organized by the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies. Details of the talk are as follows:

Abstract

In August 2025, Lu Xun’s 魯迅 (1881–1936) Yecao《野草》and Nahan 《吶喊》were published in Armenian by Granish Publishing House in Yerevan. The translator of modern Chinese literature into Armenian faces numerous intriguing challenges and paradoxes. Chinese and Armenian are strangers to each other, having had very little experience in translating each other up until early 21st century. Nothing was translated directly from Chinese into Armenian during the Soviet Union, with some works translated through the intermediary Russian language. This talk argues that the center-periphery “trial” of modern Chinese literature in the post-Soviet space is essential, as it has implications for the unsettling relations between aesthetics, nationalism, philology, and orientalism.

About the Speaker

Robert Tsaturyan is a lecturer at the Academy of Language and Culture, Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published essays and translations in English and Chinese in Chinese Literature Today, Fleurs des Lettres, Voice & Verse and in edited volumes such as Voiced and Voiceless in Asia (2023), Ethics in the Zhuangzi: Dialogues on the State of the Field (2024), among others. He has also translated Lu Xun into Armenian.