Chinese Comics in Translation

Chinese Comics in Translation #

latest update: 9 March 2026

To provide contemporary readers and researchers with a glimpse into the vast Chinese comic culture, the ChinaComx project publishes a number of exemplary lianhuanhua from the Mao and early post-Mao years with English or German translations on this webpage. Ranging from book-length standalone stories to one-pagers found in magazines, we hope that these translations will spur further interest and research into this diverse, relevant and, very often, entertaining medium.

All translations are available free and openly on this website. Each comes with high-resolution scanned images, the transcribed text in original, and its translation next to each other. Each lianhuanhua is also introduced in an approachable but scholarly way by the translator(s).

As of today, we have published fourteen ChinaComx translations of various types of lianhuanhua; these can be grouped into five thematic categories (but note that some stories may equally well fit in two categories or more):

  1. Works adapted from classics of Chinese literature:

    • The New Year’s Sacrifice 祝福 (1974) is a lianhuanhua adaptation of Lu Xun’s famous critique of tradition and feudalism: read the English translation here;

    • Geschichten über Lu Xun und Junge Leute 鲁迅和青年的故事 (1976) is a collection of three poignant short stories by Lu Xun: read the German translation here;

    • A Pair of Tweezers 一把镊子 (1981) is a one-paged lianhuanhua strip adaptation of an equally short story about Lu Xun: read the English translation here;

    • Nezha Wreaks Havoc in the East Sea 哪吒闹东海 (1985) is part three of a fifteen-part 1980s lianhuanhua adaptaion of the famous legend: read the English translation here;

  2. Tales of youth and socialist-patriotic ideals:

    • Lei Feng’s Youth Years 雷锋的少年时代 (1973) provides a biographical look at the early years of the socialist icon Lei Feng: read the English translation here;

    • Niqiu Protects the Watermelons 泥鳅看瓜 (1974) is a wartime adventure showcasing the bravery of children: read the English translation here;

    • By the Yang River 洋河边上 (1974) adapts a coming-of-age short story by Hao Ran about an elementary school pupil whose mundane actions are framed as meaningful acts of ideological practice: read the English translation here;

    • The Silent Fight 无声的战斗 (1976) is a story of espionage and counterespionage in the early-PRC told from the perspective of a young boy: read the English translation here;

    • Are You a Communist? 你是共产党员吗 (1981) is piece of allegorical scar literature lianhuanhua that raises an existential inquiry into what it meant to be a CCP member in 1981: read the English translation here;

  3. Science popularization lianhuanhua:

    • Mermaid 人鱼 (1982) is an early-Reform Era lianhuanhua strip that both celebrates patriotic science and invites to venture beyond what is known: read the English translation here;

  4. Transcultural texts and storylines:

    • Norman Bethune 白求恩 (1973) and Doctor Bethune 白求恩大夫 (1979) are two lianhuanhua adaptations of biographical tales about Norman Bethune: read the English translation here.

    • The Watch 表 (1980) is a beloved Soviet children’s story adapted into lianhuanhua for a Chinese audience: read the English translation here;

    • My Uncle Jules 我的叔叔于勒 (1980) is a lianhuanhua strip adapting a short story by Guy de Maupassant that probably every schoolchild in China was made to read in class: read the English translation here

  5. Contemporary lianhuanhua:

    • The Legend of Bing Conglin 冰聪林传奇 (2024) is an ongoing contemporary lianhuanhua serialised on Xiaohongshu 小红书 by a young fan: read the English translation here.

And this is just the beginning: we are continiously working on new translations!

Our translation philosophy and choices #

Our aim in these translations is to make lianhuanhua available to readers who do not read Chinese themselves. The collection thus is conceptualized in broad terms, offering you lianhuanhua from different periods, about different topics, and in different styles to showcase a widest possible spectrum of lianhuanhua production. We will translate both some of the most well-known and widely-read titles as well as those more obscure, unknown, and otherwise untypical. We also chose to refer to lianhuanhua 连环画 simply as lianhuanhua - rather than as “picture stories,” “serial pictures,” or “Chinese comics” - to both highlight the variety of visual-textual forms that lianhuanhua containes, but also to avoid their definitive categorizing.

We take care to keep our translations as close to the Chinese original as possible, i.e. we privilege faithfulness to the original over elegance in the translated text. Yet, we still want to give readers a feeling of the distinct linguistic style in lianhuanhua, which were normatively catering to readers not fully literate and thus often in simple language and clear and short sentences. Acknowledging the highly political language in many lianhuanhua (in particular, in those published in the high-Maoist era and during the Cultural Revolution), we also strive to translate selected political terms uniquely not only within singular texts, but also across the entire collection. Here, we opt for those translations that are closest in concept to the official line of the CCP at the time as well as following current state of the field usage.

At the same time, beyond common political and ideological terms or names of institutions, we do not force a website-wide standardization of the translations. This ensures that our translators can keep their own voice and also does justice to the different styles of the individual lianhuanhua. As we are funded by the European Research Council and want to represent the linguistic diversity of the continent and of our team, we also will translate into different European languages (for now: English and German, with translations into French, Slovenian, Spanish, Polish, and more all in the works).

Quite a few lianhuanhua employ quotations, very often from authoritative figures – and mostly of Mao Zedong. For such, we tend to make use of extant translations. In order to capture the authoritative voice of Mao quotations in particular, we reference the relevant fragments as rendered in the officially published translations of Mao’s (and others) texts by the Foreign Language Press, and as also found on the web (e.g., on marxists.org). In other cases, when the lianhuanhua is based on a translated text itself, we consult the extant English translations and/or the original source text. In all these instances, we provide detailed bibliographical references and/or website links.

All translations presented on this website arise from decisions taken in group discussion and in collaborative translation processes. In doing so, we are joining the ranks of other recent collaborative translation initiatives, such as Reading the China Dream or Revisiting the Revolution. We hope you enjoy reading these lianhuanhua in translation – and ask you to bear in mind that these are for educational and research purposes only.

Other lianhuanhua translations #

During the Mao years, the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing published translations of picture stories and lianhuanhua into English and other foreign languages. Many of these can still be found today in library collections or online repositories (e.g., here).

In addition, the 1970s also saw a few independent translations published outside China, most notably in the form of an Italian book published by Gino Nebiolo et al that was then retranslated into English and German; similar translations of excerpts of lianhuanhua into German were also prepared by Wolfgang Bauer and Christoph Harbsmeier:

  • I Fumetti di Mao (edited by Nebiolo, Gino, Jean Chesneaux, Umberto Eco), Bari: Laterza & Figli, 1971.

  • Das Mädchen aus der Volkskommune (translated from Italian by Arno Widman, with an introduction by Gino Nebiolo and commentaries by Jean Chesneaux and Umberto Eco): Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1971.

  • The People’s Comic Book: Red Women’s Detachment, Hot on the Trail and Other Chinese Comics (translated from Italian by Endymion Wilkinson and Frances Frenaye, with an introduction by Gino Nebiolo), New York: Anchor Press, 1972.

  • Chinesische Comics. Gespenster, Mörder, Klassenfeinde (translated and edited by Wolfgang Bauer), Düsseldorf: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1976.

  • Konfuzius und der Räuber Zhi. Neue chinesische Bildergeschichten (translated and edited by Christoph Harbsmeier), Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1978.

In the recent years, more and more lianhuanhua in new translation appear online:

  • Into the Tiger’s Den 深入虎穴, adapted from the novel by Qu Bo Tracks in the Snowy Forest 林海雪原, translated by Julia Keblinska here.

  • Zhuang Guanyu’s manhua version of the Journey to the West 西遊漫記, translated by Nick Stember here.

  • One of the Chinese lianhuanhua adaptations of Star Wars, translated by Nick Stember here.

  • A lianhuanhua adaptation of the science fiction story Little Smarty Travels to the Future 小灵通漫游未来 by Ye Yonglie, translated by Lena Henningsen et al here, as well as translated in part by Nick Stember here.

  • A lianhuanhua adaptation of the scar literature short story Maple 枫 by Zheng Yi, translated by Lena Henningsen and Joschua Seiler here.

  • A lianhuanhua biography of Sun Yatsen 孙中山, translated by Stephen Kow here.

  • A short lianhuanhua adaptation of The Cowherd and Weaving Maiden 牛郎織女 legend, translated by Stephen Kow here.

  • A fourteen-chapter lianhuanhua version of the Water Margin 水滸傳, translated by Stephen Kow here.

If you know about more lianhuanhua in translation, or maybe even produced one yourself, please get in touch and we will gladly add a link to the list above!

Terms of use & copyright notice #

The translations and transcriptions on this website are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). You are free to copy and redistribute these texts for non-commercial educational, classroom, and research purposes, provided proper attribution is given. If you wish to quote or reproduce these translations in a formal academic publication (such as a journal article or book) or for any commercial purpose, you must contact us first to request prior written permission.

The original Chinese texts and lianhuanhua illustrations remain the intellectual property of their respective creators and original publishers. These digital reproductions are provided strictly under educational fair use principles for the purpose of non-commercial teaching and scholarly study. They may not be extracted, printed, or distributed for commercial gain. The physical artifacts from which these scans were produced are held in the CATS-Seifert Collection of Chinese Comics at the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), Heidelberg University.

We have taken much effort to contact the publishers of the respective comics in order to acquire permission by the copyright holder to publish the pages online. We regret that we have not received responses to our inquiries. If you believe that copyrights are not being respected, please send us an email or get in touch using the contact page. We will respond as soon as possible and will work with you to either accredit the material correctly or remove it entirely.

Acknowledgements #

This webpage was initially set up by Duncan Paterson, Gu Qin, and Damian Mandzunowski as part of a proof of concept arising from work conducted with support from the ERC-funded project “The Politics of Reading in the People’s Republic of China” (READCHINA, grant agreement no. 757365). The translations published here until 2023 originated as joint translation projects by students at the Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Freiburg, supervised by Lena Henningsen. Students from FU Berlin, supervised by Dominik Weihrauch, also contributed translations during this phase.

Since 2024, the webpage is maintained by Damian Mandzunowski and the ERC-funded project “Comics Culture in the People’s Republic of China” (ChinaComx, grant agreement no. 101088049) at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University.

Special thanks go to our colleagues Matthias Arnold and Hanno Lecher from the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), Heidelberg University for providing us with high resolution scans of the lianhuanhua, part of the CATS-Seifert Collection of Chinese Comics — as well to Andreas Seifert for donating his collection to Heidelberg University in the first place.

The ChinaComx Team and collaborating translators

The translations were sponsored by the following institutions — learn more here: