All our reporter knew about Kral before she met him was that he had translated Hung-lou meng. She had no idea of his other achievements, so the interview held some of the excitement of a hunt for buried treasure.

Q: Could you talk first about your involvement in Prague Spring? What effect did it have on your academic career?

A: My research, teaching and translating work all got started at the beginning of Prague Spring. It was a great renaissance of modern Czech culture but after it was brutally smashed, darkness descended for a full 20 years. Some of my friends--including scholars, poets and activists -- fled overseas. Some of them suffered under harsh living conditions, and some of them were imprisoned. I was banned from teaching at the University of Prague and then expelled.

Fortunately, the Prague People's Museum took me in and let me work in their Oriental art department. It's located in a remote place outside the city, and I thought it would just be a temporary refuge. I never expected to be there 20 years.

I worked there with a feeling of gratitude. If those people hadn't extended a helping hand, I might have would up like some of my friends--washing windows like S--, the historian, or working as a surveyor in the countryside like K--, the literary critic.

The work at the museum wasn't physically demanding, and it had a certain cultural significance. I gradually arranged some exhibits of Chinese art, calligraphy and prints there, and friends got me books and materials from abroad so I could keep up my research and translation.

Since I was banned from being published, I didn't put out anything for a long time or else I used other people's names. And I kept translating Hung-lou meng. It was very laborious. I was isolated, and my doings were watched by the state police. It was even hard to obtain reference materials that friends of mine tried to get for me.

But life on the down and out had its advantages too. If I'd continued teaching or researching, I could never have thrown so much of myself into translating.

At a time when I seemed to have lost everything, I found solace and consolation in translating this masterwork of genius. Please don't think I'm crazy if I call it "Dreams in a Red Czechoslovakia," implying a sort of spiritual affinity between the souls of two unfortunate individuals so distant in space and time--one living in 18th-century Peking and another in 20th-century Prague--yet so close in spirit and circumstances. In the course of translating it I really worried I might go crazy sometimes. I think Ts'ao Hsueh-ch'in's mental state must have been something like that when he was writing it.

Q: How did you become involved in China studies?

A: When I entered the University of Prague, back in 1949, I had wanted to study comparative literature, but I was assigned to the British studies department because comparative literature was considered a "pseudoscience of the bourgeoisie" and the department had just been eliminated.

It was through the head of the British studies department that I was introduced to Jaroslav Prusek, the founder of Czech sinology. His appeal and that of Chinese culture captivated me. I gave up British studies the next year and threw myself into the field of sinology and Far Eastern cultural history.

I never completely lost my love for comparative literature though. I've always understood China studies as the study of an important component of world culture, as a method, that is, of learning about the general laws of human creativity and the human spirit.

Q: What effect has the Velvet Revolution had on you?

A: After the so-called Velvet Revolution, everything changed at once. I was reinstated at the University of Prague, recovered my assistant professorship in sinology and comparative literature, and was chosen as the director of the Far East Studies Office and as vice president of the College of Philosophy. Friends that were forced to work as cooks, librarians and window washers now hold high-level positions in the government and in fields of research.

I wouldn't want to work in any other country. I just want to remain at the university and cultivate a new generation of sinologists for my country, helping young people go out into the world and gain understanding, including an understanding of the Taiwan experience. Even more importantly, I want to keep on with my research and translating.

Q: Please say something about the special features of your translation of Hung-lou meng.

A: No literary work of poetic beauty can be translated perfectly into another language, so a final, conclusive version doesn't exist. It's the same for a tiny poem or a giant novel. And Hung-lou meng is a particularly poetic and lyrical novel.

I'm naturally proud of having translated China's greatest novel, because it's one of the first complete works of Chinese literature translated into a European language. Even nations much bigger than we are, such as Germany, still don't have a complete Hung-lou meng. But that doesn't mean no one can come up with a translation that is closer to the original in diction and style.

I think that every translation should be a recreation of the original. The translation of a poem should be a poem and not just an explication of it, and that was my principle in translating Hung-lou meng. Judged from the enthusiastic response of readers, it seems I've succeeded. It isn't important that it became a best-seller; what's important is that readers of another literary culture have read it with interest. What more could I ask for?

Q: Did you encounter any difficulties in translating it? How did you overcome them?

A: Europeans call Hung-lou meng a Chinese encyclopedia, because the essence of Chinese art and culture is all contained in this one great novel. The biggest difficulty I had wasn't problems in vocabulary per se, but the deeper significance of many things that you have to consult many dictionaries and annotations to understand. It's a difficulty not just for Europeans but also for contemporary Chinese reading classical fiction.

For Czech readers, the greatest difficulty is remembering the names of all the characters and their complex relationships. So I used a special method: I transliterated the names of the Chia family by sound, such as Pao-yu and Tai-yu, but I gave Czech names to the servants, such as Aroma for Hsi-jen. Readers can remember the characters' names more easily that way and better understand their social relationships.

In addition, there are lots of poems in the book, and I translated each one into another poem. That was also a great challenge. Czech poetry has a rich tradition--a Czech poet won the Nobel Prize six years ago -- and readers are very discerning. I want my translation of Hung-lou meng to be considered a part of Czech literature; otherwise, it hasn't been done well enough.

Q: What are your future plans in sinology?

A: I've taken up a translation of Wen-hsin tiao-lung (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons) and a research paper on it I did when I was banned from publishing, and I hope to have them published overseas. When I was a young sinologist, I made a vow to introduce Czech culture to China's three great social novels. I've translated Hung-lou meng and Ju-lin wai-shih (The Scholars) and the only one left is Chin P'ing Mei (The Golden Lotus). Everything is in place to complete the project. The only thing missing is time.

Q: You mentioned you are interested in Taiwan and would like to know more about it. Which areas? And why?

A: I belong to the post-1940 generation of sinologists. Taiwan was forcefully separated from our world, which limited our research and experience. For us back then, everything from Taiwan was from the devil. Then, after relations between the Soviet Union and Communist China worsened, everything from the mainland was from the devil too. During the past 20 years, real sinological research went underground. We never had a chance to go to Taiwan, even though I'm well aware that Taiwan has been of major significance in preserving Chinese culture.

[Picture Caption]

Oldrich Kral was stripped of his university teaching post for his participation in the Prague Spring movement.

These are calligraphic works of his. Above is the character 一, or "one". Below is 陽, yang or the male principle.

After the Velvet Revolution, Kral was brought back to the University of Prague as director of the Far Eastern Studies Office.

Westerners consider Hung-lou meng an encyclopedia of things Chinese, and the characters in the book have fascinated countless readers around the world. From left to right are p'ing-erh (Patience), Hsiang-ling (Caltrop), Lin Tai-yu, Ling-kuan (Charmante) and the Taoist illuminate Mysterioso with the Buddhist mahasattva Impervioso, as depicted by artists over the past two centuries.

His recent Czech translation of Hung-lou meng sold 13,000 copies in one day.

Kral once vowed to translate all three of China's great social novels. Now that Hung-lou meng and Ju-lin wai-shih have been published, only Chin P'ing Mei remains.

These are calligraphic works of his. Above is the character 一, or "one". Below is 陽, yang or the male principle.

After the Velvet Revolution, Kral was brought back to the University of Prague as director of the Far Eastern Studies Office.

Westerners consider Hung-lou meng an encyclopedia of things Chinese, and the characters in the book have fascinated countless readers around the world. From left to right are p'ing-erh （Patience）, Hsiang-ling （Caltrop）, Lin Tai-yu, Ling-kuan （Charmante） and the Taoist illuminate Mysterioso with the Buddhist mahasattva Impervioso, as depicted by artists over the past two centuries.

His recent Czech translation of Hung-lou meng sold 13,000 copies in one day.

Kral once vowed to translate all three of China's great social novels. Now that Hung-lou meng and Ju-lin wai-shih have been published, only Chin P'ing Mei remains.