《红楼梦》英译缩写本在国外

为译《红楼梦》竞折腰 上世纪90年代初，我远在澳大利亚墨尔本拉特罗布大学（La Trobe University）亚州研究院读研究生，暑假期间趁回国度假的机会，到母校四川师范大学拜望外语系黄新渠教授。那是一个雨后乍晴的午后，校园里雨滴淋着一丛丛浓密的芭蕉林，知了的欢唱灌入耳膜。黄新渠先生特地沏了上好的四川特级茉莉花茶款待我。

Dream of Red Mansions in English Abridgement

It was in the early 1990s when I was a graduate at the Asia Studies Institute under La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia that I first learned that Professor Huang Xinqu had made an abridged English version of the Dream of Red Mansions, a classical Chinese literary masterpiece by Cao Xueqin （1715-1763）. I came back to China during my summer break and went to see Professor Huang at my alma mater. It was a fine afternoon after a short rain, Cicadas sang madly. Over a cup of jasmine tea, we chatted about things that had happened since we last saw each other. Then Professor Huang mentioned that the shortened English version of the Dream of Red Mansions, hislabor of years, had just been published by Beijing Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press. Naturally we turned to the topic of book translation. We agreed that it was a mission impossible to render a Chinese classic novel into English. As his student, I congratu-lated him on his accomplishment and expressed my admiration.