Giorgio Sinedino, a prominent Brazilian sinologist based in Macao, grew up reading about China in his father’s library. Here’s how he turned his childhood fascination into an award-winning career helping the Portuguese-speaking world better understand Chinese philosophy and culture.
This past June, the Macao-based Brazilian sinologist Giorgio Sinedino received the country’s highest honour for foreign literary professionals: the Special Book Award of China. Presented by the State Press and Publication Administration, the award recognised his extensive work translating Chinese philosophical classics into Portuguese.
Among the passionate advocate of Chinese language and culture’s most celebrated translations are The Analects, Dao De Jing and Zhuangzi, published in 2012, 2016 and 2022 respectively. More than 200,000 copies of Sinedino’s critically acclaimed works, which include commentaries, have been sold in Portugal, Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries to date. “Even compared to the best things in other mainstream languages like English, French and Spanish, these books stand up well,” he tells Macao magazine. “[My versions] are deep and true to their subject matter; they’re quite complete in terms of the materials that I present.”
Since the Special Book Award of China’s inauguration in 2005, it has honoured 203 translators, publishers and authors from 63 countries and regions. This year, 16 recipients from 12 countries were celebrated at a ceremony in Beijing, where Sinedino delivered an acceptance speech on behalf of the honourees.
“I’m honoured and happy,” he says in this interview. “Receiving the award is an opportunity to reflect on all the people who made it possible. It is not just about me. There are many who help me and do not expect anything in exchange, such as the readers, those who buy my books, and the press.”
It was not Sinedino’s first time in the public spotlight. Over the years, he has lectured at universities across China and appeared on national television to discuss the likes of Confucianism. Then, last November, Sinedino had the significant honour of having his work used to help mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and China. This saw the Foreign Languages Press release a commemorative series of his translated classics.
A life-long fascination with the East
Born in the central-western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, Sinedino developed an interest in Asian cultures at an early age. Now in his 40s, he fondly recalls eating at local Chinese restaurants with his family and watching kung fu films during the 1980s – especially those starring martial arts legend Bruce Lee, whom he and his uncle both admired. Sinedino’s father, who kept a substantial library of books on the East, also encouraged his interest in the region.
Sinedino initially studied law and began his career at Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was then that he began studying Mandarin. “In Brazil, we’re curious about language learning,” he explains. “Probably because our country is so isolated. On the map, you see that Latin America is very far from pretty much everywhere in the world.”
In 2005, he was posted to Beijing as part of a diplomatic exchange programme – during which he impressed the Brazilian ambassador with his fluency in Mandarin and enthusiasm for Chinese culture. He ended up staying in the capital for seven years, working at the Brazilian Embassy while pursuing a degree in Chinese philosophy at Peking University. That’s when he began tackling his first translation project, The Analects. This ancient text, understood to have roots in the Warring States period (475-221 BCE), is composed of sayings attributed to Confucius.
Context is key
Sinedino describes his training at Peking University as “well-rounded” and interdisciplinary, an approach he believes is essential for engaging with classical Chinese texts. Understanding the historical timeline alone is not enough, he argues. Translators must also grasp the broader social and cultural forces that shaped a work’s creation and transmission.
His Portuguese translation of The Analects includes extensive explanatory material to help Lusophone readers understand the book’s philosophical concepts, historical background and cultural significance. “I also explained the process of transmission of the book because books in China are not the result or the work of a single author, but the work of schools,” Sinedino notes.
He sees The Analects as the ideal entry point for Portuguese-speaking readers interested in Chinese civilisation. “At one point, I considered writing an introductory book on Chinese philosophy, but in the end, I felt it was more valuable to translate the classics themselves and let readers engage directly,” he says.
Forging a path in Macao
In 2013, Sinedino relocated to Macao to get married, and has lived here ever since. From 2014 to 2020, he regularly travelled between Macao and Beijing while completing his second PhD in philosophy at Renmin University of China. During this time, he also worked in several Macao government departments, including the Cultural Affairs Bureau, and taught translation at the then-Polytechnic Institute and Macao University of Science and Technology (MUST). Sinedino started working as an assistant professor at UM last year. He also currently serves on the executive councils of the International Confucian Association and the World Council of Sinologists in Beijing.
In 2018, his translation of The Analects won the Chinese-Portuguese Literary Translation Award, presented by the Macao Foundation and UM. Sinedino’s second major work, the translation of Dao De Jing, was published in 2016. The original is a cornerstone of Taoist philosophy attributed to Laozi – its oldest discovered portion dating back to the late 4th century BCE (the early Warring States period). He followed this with his version of Zhuangzi in 2022, a rich compilation of philosophical parables and allegories portraying the ideal Taoist sage that dates back to the late Warring States period.
Sinedino acknowledges that Zhuangzi marked a departure from expectations. “After Confucius and Laozi, many expected [a text by the Confucian philosopher] Mencius to follow, because of his institutional significance. But I wanted to do something more imaginative – more fun.”
While he took a mostly literal approach in translating The Analects and Dao De Jing, complemented by Portuguese grammatical refinement and extensive notes, Zhuangzi demanded a looser touch. “You just can’t translate it literally,” Sinedino says. “If you do, you kill the art, you kill the literature. You are supposed to convey the literature first. Then, through the literature, talk about the ideas, the thoughts, and the philosophy within.”
‘Text alone is never enough’
Sinedino always likes to have a translation project on the go. In late July, he published his Portuguese translation and commentary of Call to Arms, a collection of short stories by modern Chinese literary icon Lu Xun (1881–1936). He is currently working on a translation of Sun Tzu’s highly influential military treatise The Art of War, written in the 5th century BCE, along with Intellectual Trends in the Qing Period by Liang Qichao (1873–1929), a prominent reformist scholar and journalist.
Sinedino attributes his interest in exploring different periods to his view of Chinese history as a continuous narrative. “There are some things that do not change. You have [similar] motifs and threads running across thousands of years. Currently, I am particularly interested in understanding the Republican Era [1912–1949] and the discussions surrounding China’s New Culture Movement. Even that still keeps a sense of continuity with far older Chinese traditions.”
The sinologist chuckles when describing translation as a labour of love, because it’s also a hard slog that results in aching eyes. “The challenge is that the text alone is never enough; I have to recreate this whole work in a new language and make people truly understand,” he explains. “ It’s not a simple act of translation – it’s a kind of cultural translation.”
Text Vivianna Cheong | Photos courtesy of Giorgio Sinedino
