April 23 is designated as World Book Day every year. How are your reading goals going so far and what are you reading?

The series of activities of "West Lake Reading Delight" in Hangzhou officially kicked off on Apr 19. More than ten themed activities will be conducted successively, including the West Lake Reading Exchange and Sharing Event, the Search for the Most Beautiful Reading Story, and the cultural walk through activity of "Bringing a Book in Search of a Civilized Hangzhou ". The West Lake Reading Exchange and Sharing Event will be held in the form of "book fair + reading sharing + cultural exchange", including the sharing of "Literary Path in the Age of the Internet" and the book fair activities in the Confucius Temple.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France. On the afternoon of the launch ceremony, a literary sharing event titled "From Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to the River Seine" was held along the canal. Centering on "Sino-French cultural exchanges," renowned translators, scholars from both China and France, including Dong Qiang, Dean of Yenching Academy of Peking University and a member of the French Academy, walked along the canal to share their perspectives on the Grand Canal, making a dialogue across time and space in literature.

Deep translation：Bridging Sino-French Cultures

On a boat ride heading north from Wulin Pier to Gongchen Bridge, Dong Qiang expressed his nostalgia. He introduced himself as a native of Hangzhou who grew up by the water. At 16, he studied at Peking University and became interested in French. Later, he went to France for further studies for 12 years. "It can be said that the waters of the Grand Canal brought me to the Seine."

Dong Qiang mentioned that he co-authored "The Road of Tang Poetry" with Nobel Prize winner Le Clézio. The French title of the book is "Le flot de la poésie continuera de couler." In the book, Le Clézio, from the perspective of a foreign writer, collided modern thoughts with ancient Tang poetry, savoring a different flavor from the poems, "We regard poetic literature as an image of a long river, which is inherited by people generation after generation, surging forward endlessly."

Dong Qiang recounted his days in France, where he missed his hometown desperately. He had published a bilingual collection of poems in Chinese and French, many of which were about his childhood and Hangzhou, attracting attention and coverage from mainstream French media such as Le Monde and Libération. This led him to meet his mentor Milan Kundera and embark on a path of literature and translation.

"As a translator and scholar, I aim to inspire young people and encourage more people to pursue translation, so that the stories of hundreds of writers can be known and understood by more people. To let the water of the Grand Canal flow to the River Seine, or vice versa, you need a ferryman in the middle. The excavation of a canal requires a significant amount of manpower and material resources. The same goes for translation work, which demands immense effort and dedication. Only through deep and meaningful translation can long-term exchange relationships and mutual understanding be established between the two countries."

Clear Waters and Flowing Waves: Bridging Sino-French Folk Exchanges

The River Seine in France is renowned as the river of arts and literature, traversing the heart of Paris. It is home to numerous cultural icons , including Victor Hugo, Balzac, and Hemingway, as well as landmarks such as the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and Left Bank cafes. This city bears the weight of world heritage and is constantly a buzz with a moveable cultural feast.

The Grand Canal, flowing for thousands of years, is the birthplace of civilization's origins in papermaking, block printing, and engraving. In the eyes of literati, it is a flowing historical scroll, containing rich emotional attachments and profound philosophical reflections, constantly inspiring generations of writers with creative inspiration and contributing countless moving chapters to Chinese and even world literature.

" When there is a river in your growing up, you probably always hear it..." This is a sentence from the American writer Ann Zwinger's work " Run, River, Run ", which strikes a chord withWu Hao, associate professor at the School of Regional and Global Governance and executive director of the Silk Road Institute at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He said that the Tang Dynasty poet Pi Rixiu once wrote, "Everyone says that the Sui Dynasty fell because of this river, but countless people still rely on the convenience brought by its navigation." In the poem, "waves" refers to the Grand Canal, which still deeply touches people today. The character "tong" in ancient Chinese means connection. From the perspective of the history of Chinese and foreign transportation, it actually represents a customary cultural ideology of cultural exchange. The emphasis on civilization exchanges in diplomatic thinking has infinite meanings. It is not just a pure aspect of "traffic", but more of "communication" .

French navigator and translator of "Illustrated Chinese Ancient Ships" Christian A. Fardel also shared his thoughts on this. He has lived in Hangzhou for seven years and is very pleased to see the earth-shaking changes along the canal. At the same time, he also hopes that the canal can open more waterways to the public. The Seine River has hosted the world's largest stand-up paddleboard competition. He hopes that in the future, he can join more water leisure enthusiasts to steer their own city boats and enjoy the scenery of the canal in Hangzhou.

This series of activities will be hosted at Xiaofeng Canal Bookstore, where Chinese and French scholars such as Shu Cai, a poet and the translator of The Little Prince, and Chen Feng, chief editor of the Chinese Literature series of Philippe Picquier Publishing House, will be invited to engage in literary exchanges with enthusiasts. Along the Canal River, a Sino-French themed market is showcasing the essence of Chinese and French literature through a combination of "literary dialogues, thematic book fairs, and literature experience zones".