Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) "I can forgive them, as it says in the Bible, because they did not know what they did. But I cannot forgive Mao Zedong. God will punish him."
With these words Wen Jieruo - one of the greatest Chinese editors and translators testifies with courage and Christian faith, to the drama after years of the Red Army's persecutions, that pushed her mother to commit suicide and her husband and sister to attempt the same.
Wen Jieruo, a 77 year old Catholic, has gained great popularity for her translation of James Joyce's "Ulysses", a dream realized together with her husband, Xiao Qian, a journalist, writer and scholar who died in February 1999. In 1957, her husband the only Chinese reporter in London during the Second World War - was forbidden to write, accused of being a rightist. The Red Army raided his house, destroyed his paintings and all his foreign language documents. They forced him to kneel while insulting him in front of his children. Xiao Qian tried to take his life with sleeping pills but was found by a friend and taken to the hospital.
"He would not have survived but for me," Wen says. "Geniuses are very weak and so was Xiao. It was my Catholic faith that sustained me. It teaches us that we have a soul and it is wrong to commit suicide."
After decades of persecution, Xiao was 'rehabilitated' in 1979 and together they began to lead a normal life again until his death. Next year some their works will be published, including 5 in English, 10 in Chinese and 7 in other translations. (MR)