Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1999

and head of the Chinese Department at the University of Stockholm, remaining there until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1990. His scholarly works of literary history, linguistic analysis, and translation, marked by that particular sensitivity to languages and literatures that is a requirement of first-rat e literary translators, have enabled him to produce an impressive record of publications, with an extraordinary range of interest, from classical to contemporary Chinese. His translations of more than 30 books and some 200 shorter works help to confirm his place among th e greatest sinologists the West has produced. As a founding member of the Academia Europaea, dedicated to the preservation of academic standards, he is a general editor of the four-volume A Selective Guide to Chinese Literature (1900-1949), which covers novel, drama, poetry, and short fiction. The quality of his work has attracted many honours and prizes internationally and at home: honorary degrees from Pragu e and Stockholm, an honorary fellowship of SOAS in London, membership of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, the chairing of the Scandinavian (now Nordic) Institute of Asian Studies in Copenhagen, and many purely Swedish honours that include his Knighthood of the Northern Star for government work, a Gold Medal of Merit for services on a Royal Tour of China, and top translation prizes, such as the Elsa Thulin Medal, as well as the most prestigious of Swedish academic prizes, the Royal Prize. There can, perhaps, be no greater mark of confidence in his qualities and capacity for intellectual work than his election, years ago, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities ， and also that of Sciences. He is a member, too , of 'The Eighteen', those trusted so highly as to be life members of the Swedish Academy, directly responsible for the selection of the Nobel prize-winners in literature. We are therefore proud that Prof. Malmqvist has been a Renditions Fellow (1990-91) in The Chinese University of Hong Kong and has always been available for help and advice. His brilliant work and genial presence, especiall y as a catalyst for academic enterprises and exchanges, are truly inspiring. We at The Chinese University benefit from his experience on the Advisory Boards both o f Renditions and the Journal of Translation Studies. The essence of his work ， I believe, is that he unmasks what was hidden, bringing the neglected to light, as with his work, to give just one example ， on the writer Yang Jifu. As a translator he insists on trying to rende r at once a service and an emotional impact, by finding not only the voice but the breath and pulse of the writer, by many re-readings; as a scholar he seeks the most objectivity possible, based on evidence; as a linguist he knows that what at first seems dry and unpromising may release fascinating results , as in his work on epistemic modality in archaic Chinese. The discovery that the thir d person pronoun may be used as a modal verb means that certain texts have been misconstrued and we now need to recognize different meanings in such texts . This is invaluable for all future readers . Here is a man whose work, scholarly and creative, is the product of a remarkably elegant, practical, generous, and surprising mind . Many years ago, he and his late wife surprisingly decided to spend their honeymoon in a small house on Lantau. To get there involved a strenuous hike. The rightness of their choice is proven by the fact that th e house is, astonishingly, modestly, beautifully, still there. Mr. Chancellor, Tpresent a man of sure spiritual strength and generosity of mind, one of the greatest sinologists of our century, Prof. Nils Goran David Malmqvist, for the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa. • The 54th Congregation