Stories of the Sahara

by Sanmao

  During a trip to Spain in 2016, I was able to spend time with Angeles Bela Quero, niece of José, and greatly enjoyed our conversation in Madrid, with translation support by Cassandra Sicre. While visiting the island of Gran Canaria, where Sanmao and José lived in the late 1970s, I was greeted with warm hospitality by Nancy Chang, a friend from that era, and her husband Daniel Chung. They brought me to Sanmao’s former abode in the town of Telde and introduced me to her neighbour Candy Santa Cabrera, who spoke vividly of her recollections of Sanmao.

  My confidence in the translation was bolstered tremen­dously through continuous discussion of linguistic nuances with a small crew of native Chinese speakers based in New York and elsewhere: Wenting Gu, Echo Yu He, Manchuang Nadia Ho and Ivy Ma. My parents Dechun Fu and Lihua Liu, as well as my sister, Ellen Fu, also contributed their own insights into certain tricky turns of phrase. I can’t emphasise enough how much I benefited from reviewing, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, an early draft of the manuscript with Annelous Stiggelbout, the Dutch translator of Sahara. I also greatly appreciated the warmth and camaraderie of my fellow Sanmao translators Sara Rovira (Catalan) and Irene Tor Carroggio (Spanish/Catalan).

  Initial guidance on the transliteration of Arabic names was provided by Dongxin Zou. Through the introductions of Alice Ella Finden and Carmen Gómez Martín, I was able to consult with a few native Sahrawi colleagues – Brahim B. Ali, Bahia Awah and Limam Boisha – whose patience and thoughtful interlocutions paved the way to more than one ‘eureka’ moment.

  The editorial crew at Bloomsbury have been a pleasure to work with. I would like to thank Alexa von Hirschberg, Imogen Denny and most especially Marigold Atkey, who shared astute comments and many wonderful suggestions throughout the stories as we spent much of the past two years volleying the manuscript back and forth across the Atlantic. Katherine Ailes helped polish up the whole thing with her keen eye on copy editing. It was truly a team effort and I couldn’t have done it without everyone named above. This project was also nurtured by the kindness and support of my partner, Christopher Yosuke Ishikawa.

  Last but not least, I am grateful to Sanmao’s family for their warmth and generosity, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Chen Ping herself, or Echo Chan, as she is alternately known. As the woman who invented and embodied Sanmao as pen name, persona and character, Echo filled the hearts of multiple generations of Chinese readers with wonderment for the great big world in which we all live. Now, over forty years after the original publication of these Saharan stories and twenty-five years since her untimely passing, Echo lives again in new translations of some of her earliest work. I’m certain she would have delighted in the opportunity to befriend even more people across cultures and languages. Though she is no longer with us, I hope my belated translation, among the others published in recent years, will give her some solace and allow her to rest contentedly, at last, amid the olive trees of her dreams.

  Mike Fu

  New York City, 2019

  Note on the Author

  Sanmao, born Chen Ping, was a novelist, writer and translator. Born in China, she grew up in Taiwan. After a stint in Europe, she moved to the Sahara Desert with her Spanish husband, a scuba diver and underwater engineer. She committed suicide in 1991.

  Note on the Translator

  Mike Fu is a Brooklyn-based writer, translator and editor. He is a co-founder and editor of The Shanghai Literary Review, a transnational English language journal for arts and literature, and the assistant dean for global initiatives at Parsons School of Design.

  BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING

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  50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK

  BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  First published by Crown Publishing Company in Taiwan in 1976

  First published in Great Britain 2019, published in agreement with Georgina Capel Associates Ltd. c/o The Grayhawk Agency

  Copyright © Sanmao, 1976

  English translation © Mike Fu, 2019

  Foreword © Sharlene Teo, 2019

  Sanmao has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

  Excerpt from Li Shangyin’s ‘The Brocade Zither’, used with the kind permission of the translator, Chloe Garcia Roberts

  Excerpt from Xin Qui’s ‘The Ugly Page/Picking Mulberries’ and from Ma Zhiyuan’s ‘Autumn Thoughts’ used with the kind permission of the translator, Andrew W. F. Wong, www.chinesepoemsinenglish.blogspot.com, February 2012, August 2010

  Excerpts from Bai Juyi’s ‘Farewells on Grassland’ used with the kind permission of the translator, Hugh Grigg

  Excerpt from ‘Climbing’ by Du Fu (Facing the Moon, Oyster River Press, 2007), translated by Keith Holyoak and used with the kind permission of the publisher

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for

  ISBN: HB: 978-1-4088-8187-3; TPB: 978-1-4088-8188-0; eBook: 978-1-4088-8186-6

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