New Culture Movement

January 19, 2015

Shakespeare is booming in China. But translating the Bard’s greatest works isn’t as clear as a summer’s day.(...) Already a phenomenon in China, William Shakespeare — known locally as Shashibiya or even Old Man Sha — is about to get a major boost. In September, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced an initiative to translate the Complete Works, all 37 plays and 154 sonnets, from Elizabethan English into modern standard Mandarin, the world’s most-spoken mother tongue.