Chinese version of Tom Hank’s ‘Uncommon Type’ pulled from stores as main translators fight over rights
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The Chinese version of Tom Hanks’ first book is being given extremely low scores on Chinese review sites and has been pulled from shelves following a dispute in which one of the translators of the book accused the head of the translation team of taking credit for her work.
Tom Hank’s 2017 collection of short stories, Uncommon Type: Some Stories, currently holds a score of 2.2/10 on Douban, a popular Chinese media review site. Of the 766 reviews on the site, 94.8 percent have given the Chinese version, which was published in December 2018, a score of 1/10.
However, these low scores have nothing to do with the quality of the book, but are the result of a falling out among members of the book’s translation team.
Many reviewers who gave low scores noted that they did so in order to bring attention to the issue.
On the book the head translator is listed as Gudabaihua, a wellknown translator who has worked on translating many US entertainment shows.
On Friday, another translator who worked on the book, A Turen, accused Gudabaihua on Sina Weibo of stealing credit for her work, alleging Gudabaihua only translated one out of the 17 stories in the book and should not be listed as the main translator.
In the post A Turen claimed that while she translated 11 of the stories and another five were translated by her friend, they both were only credited as assistant translators in the book.
The post quickly blew up on Chinese social media, leading netizens to review bomb the book on Douban.
On Monday, CITIC Press Group, which published the Chinese version, announced that sales of Hanks’ book had been suspended as the company looks into the dispute.
In a post on Sina Weibo earlier that day, Gudabaihua admitted that most of the translation work had been completed by A Turen and her friend because his time was limited, but he noted that the salary he paid was much higher than the market rate.
Gudabaihua said that he accepts blame for causing the dispute since he did not properly consider the rights of the other translators, but he denies that he plagiarized their work.
He also put forward several solutions, including removing his name as main translator and having A Turen sign a new contract with the publisher.
Lü Xiaoquan, a lawyer based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday that if most of the book was translated by others who were not properly credited, that is a violation of copyright law in China.
Many netizens also took to social media to criticize Gudabaihua.
“I think he is also guilty of false advertising, because if buyers had known that the book was translated by an assistant, they probably wouldn’t have purchased it,” Netizen Kevin Zainiuyue wrote.
In addition to complaints about the book, A Turen also claimed in November 2018 on Sina Weibo that many of the entertainment show translations posted on Gudabaihua’s Sina Weibo account had been translated and edited by her over the past three years.