Anthony C. Yu, Translator of the Saga of a Chinese Pilgrimage, Dies at 76
By SAM ROBERTS

The epic saga of a heroic Chinese monk’s pilgrimage to India with a Monkey King, a pig spirit and other disciples in a search for sacred Buddhist scriptures was first published in 1592. The novelistic quest lasted 16 years.

Four centuries later, Anthony C. Yu took nearly as long to produce an unabridged, four-volume, 1,873-page English version of the monk’s mythological narrative titled “The Journey to the West.”

“I beat the fictional monk by six months in my own pilgrimage,” Professor Yu said.

The fruit of that endeavor was what Prof. David Lattimore of Brown University called “one of the great ventures of our time in humanistic translation and publication.”

Professor Yu spent seven years on the first volume, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1977. He finished the other three volumes in 1984, completed an abridged version titled “The Monkey and the Monk” in 2006 and published an updated translation in 2012.

He died of heart failure on May 12 in a Chicago hospital, his wife, Priscilla, said. He was 76.

Professor Lattimore, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called Professor Yu’s four-volume work “splendidly comprehensive” and “the most exciting translation of any book I have read in quite some time.”

“While his translation does full justice to the adventure, lyricism and buffoonery of ‘The Journey to the West,’ ” he added, “it is completely sensitive to the spiritual content of the text as well.”

Professor Lattimore said it “quite magnificently supersedes” a popular but heavily abbreviated version titled “Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China,” which, devoid of verses, was first translated into English by Arthur Waley in 1942.

Reviewing Professor Yu’s first volume in The Times in 1977, Prof. C. T. Hsia of Columbia University said that until then it had been assumed that Sinologists whose native language was English were the best translators of Chinese literature. But he concluded that Professor Yu — who had written extensively on Western literature, taught the classical literature of both China and Greece, was trained in comparative religion and literature and was endowed with “stylistic resourcefulness” — appeared to be “especially qualified.” The original novel, a classic of Chinese literature, is generally attributed to Wu Cheng’en and is derived from the adventures of Xuanzang (pronounced shwan zahng), a monk who lived in the seventh century.

In his preface to the abridged edition (truncated from the original 630,000 Chinese characters), Professor Yu wrote: “Although the priest was by no means the only person who undertook such a lengthy peregrination in the cause of Buddhist piety, the records and accounts of his experience (by himself and his disciples after his death) encountered in Central Asia and in India made Xuanzang one of the most celebrated religious personalities in Chinese history.

“His own privations and sufferings during the sojourn on the Silk Road and beyond, his religious activities during each stage thereof, his irrepressible spiritual commitment and stupendous scholastic accomplishments and the immensity of imperial favor bestowed all combined to transform him into a cultural hero,” Professor Yu wrote.

Anthony C. (the middle initial was just a legal formality) Yu was born in Hong Kong on Oct. 6, 1938, the son of Pak Chuen Yu, a soldier who rose to the rank of general in Chiang Kai-shek’s army, and the former Norma Sau Chan. When World War II began, his family fled to mainland China, where his grandfather would distract him with phantasmagorical tales about a wise monk and his spiritual companions drawn from the 16th-century novel. According to one account, Mr. Yu first read “The Journey” when he was 4 years old and learned Chinese when his grandfather drew characters in the sand with a twig.

“Pretty soon, I was crazy about the stories, and would badger my grandpa all the time, whether we would be in air-raid shelters or fleeing from some terrible dangers,” he recalled.

After the war, he remained with his grandparents when his father was posted to the United Nations in the Chinese Nationalist military delegation and until the family moved to Taiwan in 1951.

He then made his own journey west. (In the book, the West is India.) He received a bachelor’s degree from Houghton College in western New York State, a bachelor’s of theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., and a doctorate from the University of Chicago, where he would teach for 46 years.

He rediscovered the novel as a young scholar at the University of Chicago when several colleagues encouraged him to embark on a fresh translation of all 100 chapters. He researched and referenced every poem, song and scripture in the novel and studied Taoist and Buddhist writings.

He married the former Priscilla Tang, who survives him, as does their son, Christopher.

英譯西遊記聞名 中研院士余國藩77歲病逝

以英譯「西遊記」蜚聲國際的中研院院士余國藩，十二日病逝於美國芝加哥，享壽七十七歲。學界認為，余國藩以精確翻譯和深入研究，將西遊記、紅樓夢等古典名著介紹到西方，讓西方對中國文化有更深層的了解。

余國藩1938年生於香港，父親余伯泉畢業於英國劍橋大學。余國藩從小使用中、英兩種語言，並隨祖父習中國傳統詩詞，童年便熟讀「西遊記」，扎下中西文學良好基礎。

余國藩十八歲赴美留學，獲芝加哥大學宗教與文學雙博士。中研院文哲所研究員李奭學認為，這段經歷讓余國藩得以融合宗教與文學，從宗教角度看文學、以文學思維研究宗教。

1983年，余國藩發表四巨冊英譯「西遊記」，這是西方世界首部「西遊記」全套英譯本，轟動一時。

李奭學指出，余國藩為西方提供「西遊記」精確的翻譯和完整註釋，讓西方得以進入深邃的中國哲學世界。迄今西方多次將「西遊記」搬上舞台，皆根據余版「西遊記」。2000年，余院士獲選美國藝術與科學院院士。

余國藩代表作包括「重讀石頭記：紅樓夢裡的情慾與虛構」、「朝聖之旅的比較：東西文學與宗教論集」等。

出版「余國藩西遊記論集」的聯經出版社發行人林載爵表示，余國藩的宗教背景，讓他讀出紅樓夢、西遊記深刻的宗教思想。他是第一位提出「西遊記」是以全真教思想為基礎發展的學者，也開創華人學界從宗教角度研究文學的新潮流。

李奭學指出，余國藩深具批判性思考，總是不斷挑戰、顛覆自己，晚年常說「過去的文章皆可作廢」，2005年自芝加哥大學退休後，他仍致力於「西遊記」譯注本的修訂。

余國藩為芝加哥大學唯一由神學院、比較文學系、英文系、東亞系以及社會思想委員會五個院系合聘四十年的教授，退休後獲「巴克人文學講座榮譽退休教授」稱號。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/arts/anthony-c-yu-translator-of-the-saga-of-a-chinese-pilgrimage-dies-at-76.html

2015-05-16．聯合報．A11．文化．記者陳宛茜