Wei Congwu (1905- 1978), a native of Huoqiu County, Anhui Province, was originally named Wei Chongwu, also known as Wei Liren and Wei Ruoyu, with pen names Dong Ying, Liao Nan, Chinese Cabbage and Li Xing. 1March 905 16 was born in a small businessman's family and is the younger brother of Wei Suyuan, a famous modern writer. 19 12 entered the primary school in Huoqiu county. 19 18 was admitted to Hunan public law school. 1920 entered Fuyang Anhui Third Normal School. 1922, he and Li jointly organized Dawn Weekly of Anhui Daily and Dawn Supplement of Anhui Daily to promote new culture. In the autumn of 2008, he was admitted to the second grade of the middle school affiliated to Hubin University in Yueyang, Hunan. From June 65438 to June 0923, he went to Beijing, lived with his third brother, Wei Suyuan, in Apartment No.5 on the beach opposite the building of Peking University First Hospital, and studied in Grade Two of Beijing Shi Chong Middle School. 1924 began to translate Dostoevsky's The Poor. I knew Lu Xun from 65438 to 0925, and often went to Peking University to study the history of China novels by Professor Lu Xun. In the autumn of the same year, he was admitted to yenching university, and at the initiative of Lu Xun, he founded the famous "Unnamed Society" with Wei Suyuan, Tai Jingnong and Li. At the same time, he edited Yanda Monthly, founded Mangyuan Bimonthly, and engaged in publishing, creation, translation and management of the unnamed society. 1929 graduated from university and will go to Shanghai as a translator at the end of next year. In a few short years, he translated and published works such as Russian Dostoevsky's The Poor and Crime and Punishment, Bunin's New Dream, French Bello's Memories of Dostoevsky, Sleeping Beauty, British Gus's History of Modern English Literature, as well as his novel The Principal and a new collection of poems. 193 1 In September, I came to Tianjin as a professor of English Department at the invitation of Tianjin Women's Teachers College, teaching the history of English literature, English drama and translation. 1933 September, in order to realize my ideal, "I dream that China in the future will be a cooperative joint-stock company, in which all adults are members and shareholders, and the military, political and religious departments are subordinate to it, forming an economic unit and moving towards the goal of a world cooperative joint-stock company". I returned to my hometown of Huoqiu County, and started a school and a "training course on revitalizing rural work". During the eight-year Anti-Japanese War, forced by his livelihood, he had to go into business to support his family and once gave up literary creation and translation. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, translation and creation began again. During this period 1946~ 1949 translated and published Dostoevsky's Prisoner of Siberia (now translated into Notes on the Dead House), Dead House, Landlord and other novels. 65438-0950, joined the Shanghai Translators' Association as the head of the literary and art group. 1952 as an English editor in Shanghai New Literature and Art Publishing House. In the early 1950s, more than 20 Russian, Soviet and American literary works were translated and published. Since 1955, I have been troubled by unjust cases. Under difficult circumstances, I still concentrate on my study and continue to translate. 1957 translated and published the collection of Soviet short stories "Friendly Smile", 1958 translated and published the novel "Giant" by American writer Dreiser. His translations in the 1950s amounted to nearly 5 million words. 1960 moved to Hangzhou in April. 197865438+February, teaching English at Hangzhou Silk Institute. In the same year 65438+February 65438+September, he died of heart disease. 1980, his unjust, false and wrong case was rehabilitated.

Wei Congwu is a creative translator. He has been diligent in writing all his life, leaving many creative translation works. His translated works include The Poor, Dostoevsky's Short Stories, Crime and Punishment, brothers karamazov, Prisoner of Siberia, House of the Dead, Landlord, Immature Youth, Orphan Girl, Friends of the Family and Underground Notes. Gambler, Idiot, Enchanted Man, Memories of Dostoevsky, Bunin's New Dream, Nisso, Morning in sakhalin island, Millionaire, Kuznetsk Square, Lenin-The Sunset, Short Stories of the Soviet Union, and The Belorussian Kingdom.

The important translations of Russian and Soviet literature published after the founding of the People's Republic of China are: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Wenguang Bookstore,1950-1953; Zhejiang People's Publishing House, 1980), Prisoner of Siberia (Wenguang Bookstore, 1950- 1953), Poor People (Wenguang Bookstore, 195 1- 1953). Tolstoy's childhood in Regina (Cultural Work Agency,1950); Harvest of nikolayeva (Culture Press,1951); Morning on Sakhalin Island by Chakovsky (Shanghai Haiyan Bookstore, 195 1). His translation achievements in Russian and Soviet literature are mainly reflected in Dostoevsky's translation.

Wei Congwu has always kept in mind the entrustment and hope of Lu Xun: "In the future, it is best to translate Dostoevsky exclusively and complete the complete works." He regards this as the most meaningful thing in his life, the direction and goal of his own efforts. In the preface to the eighth edition of Crime and Punishment published by Wenguang Bookstore 1950, he once told readers about one of his plans: "I hope to spend another three years translating the complete works of Dostoevsky's novels according to the best English version recognized by constance Garnett. Then I majored in Russian, recalibrated and completed the most meaningful work in my life. " In order to achieve this goal, even in his later years, when the road was bumpy and he was poor and senile, he still worked from morning till night. On the one hand, he revised the original translation, on the other hand, he continued to translate Dostoevsky's other works, and finally completed the huge translation project of Dostoevsky's Complete Novels (a total of 24 novels) with nearly 3 million words.

Wei Congwu's translation of Dostoevsky's works has the following characteristics. First, it's quite vivid. Wei Congwu is a poet and has written novels. He can understand the subtleties of translated works. Therefore, there are many places in his translation that can well convey the charm of the original. Second, concise and smooth. This is the common feeling of readers who have read Wei Congwu's translation of Dostoevsky's novels. Zhejiang People's Publishing House clearly pointed out "simplicity and fluency" in the "Publishing Notes" of 1980 Crime and Punishment; Third, long-term comprehensive. Wei Congwu began to translate Dostoevsky's works at the age of 1924, and persisted in his later years. He has translated all 24 novels of Dostoevsky for more than 50 years, with nearly 3 million words, which is extremely rare in the translation history of Dostoevsky's works. Because of the age, the translated works are relatively complete, and his understanding of the works is deeper than that of translators who only translate one or two or a few works. Fourth, strive for perfection. Because of the long translation time, he has more time to revise his translation carefully. When the translated works published in his early years were reprinted, he often revised them repeatedly. 1946 When the sixth edition of Crime and Punishment was published, it was completely revised. 1960, he revised it completely according to the eighth edition of Wenguang Bookstore, and the translation quality was greatly improved. This made his translation of Dostoevsky's novels reach a higher level.

However, Wei Congwu's translation of Dostoevsky's works also has some shortcomings. First, it is translated from English, and it is a literal translation (he claimed in the preface written by 1930 for Crime and Punishment that "the whole book is a literal translation." In fact, he admired Lu Xun all his life and was greatly influenced by Lu Xun's "hard translation theory". All his novels were literal translations. Therefore, the understanding in many places is not accurate enough (for example, there is an obvious mistake in the last part of the first chapter of Crime and Punishment: "Go along the crowded line and meet the old woman". In fact, the original sentence should be: "Run along Borgiazi Street and find it. It is an obvious mistake to translate "Podiachi Street" into "crowded line". Of course, this may be a mistake in English translation. Moreover, it is difficult to reproduce Dostoevsky's style well. Secondly, a major feature of Dostoevsky's novels is to reveal the hidden feelings and thoughts of the characters. Therefore, he often writes hallucinations, dreams and even streams of consciousness, and his thoughts jump greatly, and his words are often intertwined or not closely related. One of the characteristics of Dostoevsky's novels translated by Wei Congwu is that the words are concise and smooth, which is far from Dostoevsky's style.

Of course, Wei Congwu also knows that there are many problems in translating according to the English version and tries his best to make up for this deficiency. One is to check the Russian original. In the preface of 1930's Crime and Punishment, he declared: "I retranslated it according to constance Garnett's English version and often compared it with the original Russian version. ..... We find that the English version often makes mistakes. Like the poor English version, we can't help but lament the difficulty of translation because the translator is very famous. She translated almost all the works of Du Jienev (that is, Turgenev-the initiator), Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. The works of other Russian writers still exist. " But he doesn't know Russian himself, so he has to find someone to proofread the translated works according to the original Russian. For example, the poor invited Wei Suyuan, a third brother who is proficient in Russian, and he "carefully reviewed the full text in Russian from beginning to end"; When the sixth edition of Crime and Punishment was published, "Mr. Zhang Tiexian made a detailed revision in Russian from beginning to end, which took one year". Second, I intend to specialize in Russian and proofread my translation again to make it more accurate and closer to the writer's style. Unfortunately, unjust cases have repeatedly plagued him, making him unable to realize his wishes.

In a word, Wei Congwu translated all Dostoevsky's novels independently, despite his shortcomings, and his artistic achievements made him occupy a more important position in the modern translation history of China.