ST. PETERSBURG - The third volume in a series of modern Chinese prose translations published by Russian publishing house KARO in conjunction with the Confucius Institute of St. Petersburg State University was launched Friday at an official ceremony in Russia's cultural capital.

Entitled "Greater Good, Lesser Evil," the collection features short stories written by ten of the finest writers from southwest China's Guizhou Province expertly translated into Russian by several of the country's finest literary translators, including Igor Egorov, the Russian translator of Nobel Prize-winner Mo Yan, and former Russian winner of the Chinese Bridge competition Alexandra Nikitina.

Several of the authors featured in the volume attended Friday's ceremony. Speaking on behalf of the other Guizhou writers, Ouyang Qiansen expressed his gratitude for the interest shown in Guizhou literature by Russian publisher KARO and his hope that the ceremony would mark the beginning of closer cultural ties between southern China and Russia's northern capital.