Eva Luedi Kong has launched her German version of Journey to the West. The book also features illustrations restored by Zhang Xiaofeng, a professor of woodcut paintings at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. YANG FAN/CHINA DAILY

Luedi Kong believes that a translator should have real interest in the work being translated, because "then it is easier and more fun in overcoming the obstacles".

She recently returned to Switzerland with family, and gives lecturers on traditional Chinese thinking.

Meanwhile, Meier says that new German versions of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh are to be published soon.

Eva Schestag, who was at Luedi Kong's book launch at Frankfurt, is working on the first complete German version of Three Kingdoms since 2011.

Speaking about her work, Luedi Kong says: "People nowadays are rootless. The Chinese classics offer chances to examine and talk with one's inner self, which benefited me a lot.

"The journey west can be taken as a mental pilgrimage, in which things deep down gradually get released, which gives the novel contemporary relevance."