The Fu Lei translation awards: Bridging French-Chinese literature

An exhibition to commemorate the 100th birthday of Fu Lei is held in Central China's Wuhan, Hubei province, on Sept 20, 2008. [Photo/VCG]

"There has been a severe shortage of young translators in our country. We hope this award will help get people's attention to this industry and encourage more young people to participate," said Dong Qiang, the awards' organizing committee chairman.

According to the French Culture Center, China is now the largest copyright import country for French books. However, a large amount of them are children's books, said Robert Lacombe, the cultural counselor of the French Embassy in China, while presenting Tuesday's news briefing. In 2015, Chinese publishers bought copyrights of over 1,600 French books, but literary works and those on social sciences only accounted for some 20 percent.