Released in January, the first-ever Chinese translation of the first third of James Joyce’s notoriously difficult to read and comprehend novel, Finnegans Wake, became a bestseller as all 8,000 copies of the original print run were sold in its first month. That made it number two on a venerable bestseller list in Shanghai. Its translator, Dai Congrong, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, spent eight years translating just the first third of the book. Dai is under contract to translate the remaining two-thirds of the book. “It is a kind of torture,” she said, though she remains fervently dedicated to the work and her love for Joyce’s writing.

“My body suffered from the work, working every night,” Dai said. “[But] I think it’s a very good book.”

Due to disapproval from Mao Zedong throughout the 20^th century, Joyce’s work did not find its way into China until 1975, when A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man arrived in translation. Ulysses was not translated until 1995—and, according to the Guardian, readers quickly bought 85,000 copies.

Source: The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/05/finnegans-wake-china-james-joyce-hit?INTCMP=SRCH