The first day the Spanish sinologist Alicia Relinque Eleta learned Mandarin, she developed a passionate interest in the language, and this passion has continued for over 40 years.

Alicia Relinque Eleta (Photo/Guo Qiuda)

For Eleta, Mandarin opened a gate to the Chinese classical literature. She recalled how she was impressed by the poetry written in the characteristic style of China's Tang dynasty. "It is amazing that the short and simple poems could paint vivid pictures in my mind," said Eleta.

Eleta has successively learned Chinese language and classical literature in a systematic way in Paris Diderot University as well as Peking University. Eleta believes that Chinese classical literature is filled with wisdom and culture and furthermore that studying it enables people to understand today's China.

Ever since the 1990s, Eleta has translated several classical works of Chinese literature into Spanish, including The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Romance of the Western Chamber and The Peony Pavilion.

"Chinese classical literature is so beautiful and I want to help the readers back home to appreciate the beauty of it," said Eleta.

At first, she translated The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, her first literary translation, merely for the sake of her doctoral dissertation. Then, the translation work got published and received positive responses from readers as well as the academic world, which made her more determined to translate classical Chinese literature into Spanish.

Eleta’s Spanish translation of Chinese romantic tragicomedy play “The Peony Pavilion (Photo/Jiang Bo)

The Spanish people had limited access to the Chinese literature back then, said Eleta. She added that the scarce works of Chinese literature were mostly translated from their English and French versions, which deleted the details and essence of the original works.

To make her translation more precise, she would read many reference books to learn about the language style, historical background and other aspects of the original works, said Eleta.

Eleta will attempt to translate Verses of Chu, an anthology of Chinese traditional poetry, in the near future. She hopes that more people will bring Chinese literature to Spain to facilitate understanding between the peoples of the two countries.