At her old residence in Beijing, legendary Chinese translator Wen Jierou candidly shared her lifetime career in translation

“You have to have some level of genius to be a successful writer, but you don’t have to have as much to be a translator,” said Wen Jieruo, an 85-year-old veteran translator. “Just learn more and practice more.”

Wen Jieruo was born in 1927 in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, and is a well-known translator of Japanese Literature in China, and is fluent in both English and Japanese.

Wen humbly explained that she is just a normal person. She said: “So I preferred to be a translator, because I never had any of the beautiful inspirations that my husband, Xiao Qian, had.”

Xiao Qian was a famous Chinese essayist, editor, journalist and translator. He died at the age of 90 in Beijing in 1999. More.

See: China.org.cn