- Wang Weike
Wang Weike ( _zh. 王維克) (1900 - 1952) is a Chinese translator, the first one to produce a complete Chinese translation of
Dante 's "Divina Commedia" (rendered indirectly from French).He is a native of Jintan,
Jiangsu Province . In 1917, he attended the Nanjing Hohai Engineering School (南京河海大學) (the presentHohai University ). He was forced to leave the school, being an active participant of student activities. He then left forShanghai to study natural sciences atTatung University . After his graduation, he went to Zhendan University (震旦大學) to pursue the study of French. Back to his hometown, he taught in Jintan County Elementary Secondary School (金壇縣立初級中學) for one year. During this period of time, he became the patron of the future mathematicianHua Luogeng , who was to bear a lifelong gratitude towards him. In 1925, he went toParis , and became one of the students ofMadame Curie .He returned to China in 1928, and taught at China Public School (中國公學) in Shanghai. One year later, he was back in Jintan, and got married. He served as the schoolmaster of Jintan County Elementary Secondary School, and employed Hua Luogeng, who was then poor and sick.
Beside Dante's epic, Wang also translated
Kalidasa 's famous play "Sakuntala" into Chinese (again indirectly from French, but it is said that he spent some time to learnSanskrit from aBuddhist monk in order to produce a better translation).External links
* [http://www.jtnews.com.cn/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=197 Biography] (in Chinese)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
