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The Department of Translation and the University Library System at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) today (1 February) held the inauguration ceremony of the ‘Translation Archive of The Chinese University of Hong Kong’ cum opening ceremony of ‘The David Hawkes Papers: An Exhibition’. Officiating guests included Prof. Joseph J. Y. Sung, Vice-Chancellor of CUHK; Prof. Leung Yuen-sang, Dean of Faculty of Arts, CUHK; Mrs. Jean Hawkes; Prof. Chan Sin-wai, Chairman of the Department of Translation, CUHK; Prof. John Minford, David Hawkes’ Literary Executor and Professor, Department of Translation, CUHK; and Dr. Colin Storey, University Librarian, CUHK. The event was also one of the celebratory activities of the 40^th Anniversary of the Department of Translation. 

The ‘Translation Archive of The Chinese University of Hong Kong’ (the Archive) aims to provide a valuable source of primary materials for translation scholars and students to study the ‘translator at work’. The Archive preserves and makes available rare firsthand materials, such as manuscripts of translations, early drafts and revisions, notebooks, books annotated by translators, correspondence between translators and publishers, between collaborating translators, between translators and authors. It also contains digital resources like video and audio interviews. The Archive will bridge the gap between the study of translation theory and the study of translation practice, enabling scholars to provide critical examples demonstrating the methods of work of outstanding translators, and to ground their theoretical studies in telling empirical evidence. This precious resource will encourage students and practitioners of the art of translation to study how experienced translators have worked to rise to the challenges of translation. The Archive is conceived of as a Hong Kong-wide and international resource. It will focus initially on translation between Chinese and English, and will be expanded to cover translation between other languages. 

Today also marked the opening ceremony of ‘The David Hawkes Papers: An Exhibition’. The late Prof. David Hawkes, known for his masterful rendering of the first eighty chapters of The Story of the Stone (《紅樓夢》or《石頭記》), is a renowned translator of Chinese literature. With the kind consent of Mrs. Jean Hawkes, The David Hawkes Papers have been donated to the Archive by Prof. John Minford, Professor Hawkes’ Literary Executor, to become the first important collection of materials deposited in the Archive. It consists of many unpublished manuscripts of Professor Hawkes, including an extensive study of the entire corpus of Yuan drama (元雜劇). Among the books in the collection are Professor Hawkes’ own annotated copy of the first Oxford University Press edition of The Songs of the South (《楚辭》) which gave valuable insight into his revisions incorporated into the later Penguin Classics edition (1985). There is also a voluminous and most informative correspondence between Professor Hawkes and various editors at Penguin Books, as well as letters (hitherto unpublished) relating to Professor Hawkes’ translation work on The Deer and the Cauldron《鹿鼎記》. 

‘David Hawkes’ Papers: An Exhibition’ will be held at New Asia College Ch’ien Mu Library of CUHK from today till 14 February, and from 2 – 20 May. For details, please contact Ms. Kitty Lui at 3943-1667.