Eva Lüdi Kong

Eva Lüdi Kong has been awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Translation for Die Reise in den Westen (‘Travel into the West’), her translation of an at least 400 year old Chinese book. In this book, whose author is unknown, four pilgrims who have been expelled from heaven and condemned to earth, describe their travel west to honour Buddha. It is the most popular book in Chinese literature. Though its story and its many legends are widely known in modern China, and frequently appear in manga, computer games and films, only short abstracts of the book were available in German until now.

Eva Lüdi Kong is the first German translator to have translated the book in its entirety. Her modern, vivid translation is accompanied by an extensive body of notes she wrote in order to explain the many Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist and alchemic references in the book that may not be easily comprehensible to readers in a different time and cultural context.

Eva Lüdi Kong (1968) studied Chinese language and culture in Switzerland and in China, where she lived for 25 years.

The Leipzig Book Fair Prize for Translation is considered to be one of the three most important German book awards and is worth €15,000.

Please click here (https://www NULL.reclam NULL.de/detail/978-3-15-010879-6/Die_Reise_in_den_Westen) for a short introduction into the novel by Eva Lüdi Kong (in German).