Frankfurt Book Fair: Dialogue Between Chinese Writer Xuemo and German Sinologist Wolfgang Kubin on the Tao Te Ching

At noon on October 18th, 2019, “Dialogue on the Significance of Tao Te Ching in Today's world” was carried out between the Chinese writer Xuemo and the German Sinologist Wolfgang Kubin at the Reading China Center at Frankfurt Book Fair. The event was jointly hosted by China Publishing Group Corporation and Encyclopedia of China Publishing House (ECPH). This event is one of a series of events organized by the Xuemo Book Center of ECPH to promoteXuemo's works overseas, and was attended by over a hundred people including Jiang Lijun (the deputy editor in chief of ECPH), publishers from around the world, experts and scholars from many different fields in Germany, college students, and Chinese readers who had came all the way from China after hearing about the event.

In recent years, Xuemo has been dedicating his effort to reinterpreting traditional Chinese cultures including Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in a way that is in pace with the modern era. His Laozi’s True Thoughts—Xuemo’s Interpretation of the Tao Te Ching series is a cultural monograph that interprets the Tao Te Ching. Aiming to cater for the needs of contemporary readers of all sorts of backgrounds, the series strives to help solve modern people’s confusions within the framework of Eastern philosophy, and emphasizes putting classic works like the Tao Te Ching into practice. “German-speaking countries, especially Germany, have probably the most advance theories of translation.” said Wolfgang Kubin. “Translation is related to philosophy. Hence in order to do translation, you need to become a philosopher. Xuemo is not only a writer, but also a philosopher. Why? Because writing requires thinking.”