A life in translation

When Weiguo Cao, a career-track associate professor of Chinese at Washington State University, first encountered the Grand Scribe's Records as a teenager in 1980s China, he had no idea the ancient text would play a major, re-occurring role throughout the course of his life.

Now, nearly 30 years into a translation project that spans continents and generations of scholars, Cao is helping to bring one of the most foundational works of Chinese history and literature into English - complete and annotated - for the first time.

The Grand Scribe's Records, or Shiji, is a sprawling, 130-chapterepic compiled more than 2,000 years ago by Sima Qian, a court historian under the Han Dynasty. It chronicles two millennia of Chinese history including the rise and fall of dynasties, the formation of philosophical schools such as Confucianism and Daoism, and the consolidation of imperial China under figures like Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor.

The goal of the translation is to render the entire work, written in a form of Classical Chinese that is largely unintelligible to modern readers, into English with comprehensive scholarly annotation. The result offers a new bridge between cultures and a rare lens into a civilization shaped by war, diplomacy, and the pursuit of immortality. The process has been slow, painfully so. But the project, started in the early 90s by Cao's graduate school advisor, the now-retired Professor William Nienhauser of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is nearing completion. Cao and his collaborators hope to finish the full translation by the end of 2026.

"The challenge isn't just translating the classical Chinese," Cao said. "It's understanding how one account fits or contradicts others. The text is full of inconsistencies. Sima Qian wrote different versions of the same event in different chapters - and his accounts often diverge from those found in other early Chinese texts. It's like a web of historical memory."

The chapter Cao is working on now, "The Yearly Table of the Twelve Feudal States," catalogs key, albeit brief, entries on events from the Spring and Autumn Period, a time when hundreds of rival states vied for dominance during a politically fractured era that preceded China's first unification.

"It's like if California invaded Oregon one year, and then Idaho married off a princess to Washington state the next," he said. "Each entry is just a line or two, but every one hints at centuries of diplomacy, warfare, and cultural exchange."

That sparse narrative belies the intensive work required for each chapter. After Cao or another contributor completes an English language draft, it undergoes months of group review, often sparking heated Zoom debates.

"Everyone has a different interpretation," he said. "You need thick skin. But it makes the translation stronger."

Each chapter also includes extensive footnotes, bibliographies, and translator's commentary, often longer than the text itself.

"We're not just translating words. We're building a scaffold for understanding," Cao said.

Cao began on the project in the 1990s as a graduate student under Nienhauser at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, contributing a single chapter. After years away teaching Chinese, he returned to the effort in 2016. He has taught Chinese language and culture in WSU's School of Languages, Cultures, and Race since 2004, and now pursues the translation work in his spare time, driven by passion for Chinese history and a belief in the project's lasting value.

To Western audiences unfamiliar with the Shiji, Cao offers a parallel: "It's like the Greek philosophers," he said. "If you want to understand Plato and Aristotle, you also need to know the wars and politics of their time. The same is true here." The book includes biographies of Confucius, Laozi, and Sun Zi - the famed military strategist and author of The Art of War - and reflects the ferment of competing ideas that emerged during centuries of instability and innovation.

That conflict is vividly portrayed in some of Cao's favorite chapters, such as the biography of Qin Shi Huang, the brutal but unifying first emperor who ordered the construction of the Great Wall and standardized China's writing system. Sima Qian, writing a century later, looked back on Qin Shi Huang's reign with disdain for its cruelty but acknowledged its historical weight.

"Without Qin Shi Huang," Cao said, "China might have ended up like Europe - dozens of separate countries with different languages."

The Shiji also contains personal drama. Its author was castrated on the orders of Emperor Wu of Han after offering unwelcome advice about military policy. Rather than take his own life, a common response among disgraced scholars, Sima Qian chose to live, so he could finish his life's work.

"He said if he died unfinished, no one would remember his name," Cao said. "But if he completed the Shiji, people would remember for thousands of years."

And they have. The Shiji remains a touchstone of Chinese identity, influencing historians and novelists alike. Even today, Chinese schoolchildren read excerpts in literature classes, as Cao once did, never imagining he'd help bring the entire work to life in English.

He hopes readers will come away with more than just facts. "I want people to see how much of China today still reflects these ancient ideas," he said. "The reverence for ancestors, the suspicion of war, the pursuit of harmony - all of it is here."