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As the title suggests, Jules Verne's novel Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1879) is about the adversities and trying events experienced by a Chinese person. It is quite plausible that Verne's representation of Chinese people differs from how the Chinese saw (or see) themselves, but they have little chance of finding out if no translation exists.

The French, English, German and Spanish Wikipedia pages about the novel make no mention of Chinese translations. In fact, only the English Wikipedia page mentions any translations (into English).

The Chinese Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention translations either. (It mentions two film adaptations.)

Hence my question: has Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine ever been translated into Chinese? If yes, who translated it and when? For the purpose of this question (since chances look slim), a translation into any Chinese language or dialect would be valid: Standard Chinese, Cantonese, Shanghainese, …

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  • It looks like two translations are available from amazon.com: one from 2016 and one from 2021 amazon.co.uk/… Commented Sep 3 at 15:05
  • @ClaraDíazSanchez Thanks.
    – Tsundoku
    Commented Sep 3 at 15:42

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In a comment, Clara Díaz Sanchez identified this translation on Amazon UK. Its title is different from the title on the Chinese Wikipedia page, which reads 一个中国人在中国的遭遇.

The title of the translation is 一个天朝人的磨难:

  • 一: yi: one;
  • 个: ge: measure word (the most generic measure word in Standard Chinese);
  • 天朝: Tiān​cháo: Celestial Empire;
  • 人: rén: person;
  • 的: de: possessive particle;
  • 磨难: mó​nàn: a torment / a trial / tribulation.

(Translations and pinyin transcriptions provided by MDBG Chinese dictionary.)

The translator (翻译 / fān​yì, shortened to 译) is 周 国强 (Zhōu Guóqiáng, but 强 can also be pronounced qiǎng or jiàng).

The publisher is the 人民文学出版社 or People's Literature Publishing House.

Another "Chinese edition" on Amazon.com has 樛木计 (jiūmùjì) on the front cover. I don't understand what the characters mean, but the name Julien Moca on the front cover suggests that this is a either a comics adaptation or an adaptation for children and not a full translation. (The presence of the pinyin transcription jiūmùjì clearly suggests that the book is aimed at children.) The book is published by Tsinghua University Press (清华大学出版社 on the cover). The description on the publisher's website seems to confirm that it is a comics adaptation.

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