In 2013 Chinese publishing house Shanghai Translation Publishing House published three different issues of Milorad Pavic’s Dictionary of the Khazars (米洛拉德·帕维奇). First the book was printed in two hardcover editions, one with a globally recognizable design, the other a luxury edition, to be followed by an e-book version in October on Chinese Amazon. The large Shanghai publisher decided to entrust this task to three translators, 南山 - Nan Shang, 戴骢- Dai Cong, 石枕川- Shi Zhenchuan. Especially since five more books by Pavic will be printed by the same publisher next year.
Chinese readers, press and critics have received with delight this famous book by the Serbian writer which has been achieving cult fame in the Far East these past few years, having been translated not only into Chinese, but into Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian, Taiwanese and Vietnamese as well. "Admiration for Serbian writer Milorad Pavic is growing globally” says international Chinese radio GB Times on its website. In a highly scientific text in the Chinese New York Times, author Ali Han, professor of contemporary American literature at the University of Peking compares the male and female version of Dictionary of the Khazars with the yin and yang principle, basing his conclusion on the significance and complexity of this book to world literature on philosophical and metaphysical essence. Readers on Amazon.cn, rating the Kindle version of Dictionary of the Khazars highly, say that it is a rare alternative to classical writings of epochs past, dubbing Pavic the emperor of Serbian literature.
The mentioned three versions of Chinese Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic are the 102nd translation of this book, which has so far been published in 36 languages. Next year, 2014, will mark the 30th anniversary of first Serbian publication of the Dictionary of the Khazars (1984) and the 5th anniversary of Pavic’s death.
The posthumous period has seen publication of 50 different translations of Pavic’s books worldwide, while 9 books in Serbian have been published in Serbia. The Dictionary of the Khazars itself took three years to be published in its original language.
