A Century of Chinese Literature in Translation (1919–2019): English Publication and Reception

Abstract

The collection of twelve essays under this review focuses on the history (1919–2019) of Chinese literature, ranging from novel, play, to metafiction. As indicated in its subtitle, English Publication and Reception, the volume explores the broad coverage of translation terrain in America, Australia, Britain, Singapore, and so on. This attempt, in editors' words, is to deal with the question of “discrepancy between the volume of research published in Chinese and in English” (1) and make up for the absence of one volume “dedicated to various faceted of Chinese translational literary work in international translation studies scholarship” (1). The volume is divided into three parts with an introduction that gives an explanatory overview of Chinese literature in the Anglophone world and the structure of the whole collection. But the review below will rearrange the order of those chapters to highlight the major topics the book covers.Different from the macro history the book delineates, chapter 1 records a microhistory of translation with the aid of archival paratext. Borrowed from correspondences in the Allen & Unwin archives, it testifies how the nonprofessional agents, such as Arthur Waley, Xiao Qian, and Stephen Payne, either voluntary or solicited, form a positive interaction with the publisher, and demonstrate what decisive role they play in bridging the translator and publisher on the publication of books. Another case is “Unpacking the Mo Yan archive: actor-network translation studies and the Chinese literature translation archive” in chapter 2. It argues that translation should be examined in the target literary system, a larger, diffuse network structure where all participants will make significant contributions to the processes of translation (24). Both of the two chapters emphasize the importance of archives in Descriptive Translation Studies, with the former predicting an “archival turn” in translation studies (3), while the latter hoping to initiate “a new epoch of materialist sociology in translation studies of Chinese literature” (28).Chapters 4, 5, and 6 revolve around the notion of acceptance of Chinese literary works in the West. Quantitively, the reception of Chinese literature can be evidenced by publication information, book distribution, and successive retranslations, and so forth. Listing all the translations of Lu Xun's short novel in different stages, chapter 6 examines how Lu Xun, the “most translated and studied modern writer in China” (86), is rendered and re-rendered into the English world by different translators. It assists readers to paint a panorama of Lu Xun's works in English more clearly. Based on the concept of “givism,” Qiang Geng (chapter 4) reevaluates the program of the Panda Books Series since the 1980s. Sorting out the path of China's cultural mentality, Geng identifies “gift-giving” as a reasonable excuse for the failure of publication and reception of the Panda Books Series in the target culture. Qualitatively, various film adaptations, dramatic performances, literary creation, and criticisms can also be deemed as indicators of acceptance of translations in the target cultural and social system. Chapter 5, entitled “Regarding Lady Precious Stream: A theatrical translation,” studies S. I. Hsiung's rewriting that initiated the global popularity of the traditional Chinese play, which was thereafter performed on stage successfully in Australia. In this part, contributors not only enumerate successful cases but also reflect on the failure of “outbound translation” (57), launched by the Chinese government, in translational history.Given the complexity of literary translation and reception, the book also examines the most feasible and flexible translation models to allow readers more accessible to Chinese culture and literature. Four chapters specify collaboration, whether voluntary or forced, as the outcome of translation practice. Based on her own translation experience, McDougall presents contemporary cases in “Intuition and spontaneity in multiple voice literary translation: collaboration by accident or by design” (chapter 3), which problematizes the concept of individual translation. Taken cooperation between James Legge and Wang Tao, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang as instances, McDougall concludes that only in a collaborative approach, can the properties of “intuition, spontaneity, creativity, and imagination in literary translation” be guaranteed (41). Along this line, chapter 7 continues to explicate how a unique way of cooperation works in translation. It witnesses that the seemly separate co-translation with Lao She's “content constructions” and Ida Pruitt's “language constructions” (103) proved, instead, that such a unique model was a huge success in translational history. Besides mainland China, Hong Kong offers another arena for practicing translation models. Uganda Sze Pui Kwan describes Dung Kai Cheung's various attempts to achieve cultural identity being oblivious for a long time in chapter 8, regardless of “translation, retranslation, self-translation, and team translation” (118).According to Lawrence Venuti, “the translator's invisibility is thus a weird self-annihilation, … reinforced its marginal status in Anglo-American culture” (The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation, London, 2004). Nevertheless, as the status of translation improves greatly, the translator turns out to be an indispensable part of the whole process, which cannot be neglected anymore. Thus, “translators' voice” is highlighted in two chapters metaphorically. In “Translating between languages” (chapter 11), Carlos Rojas, with his linguistic sensitivity, deals with the issue of intralingual translation, a concept put forward by Roman Jackson in 1959. Allan H. Barr's “Translating Yu Hua” (chapter 12) records his communication with the author, the publisher, who will ponder upon the marketability of books. His experience is drawn on to illuminate how communication functions between different subjects, which echoes the abovementioned articles concerning translation models.As for translation criticism, Lu Shao (chapter 9) and Will Gatherer (chapter 10) shed new light on the popularity of Chinese literature. Shao's “English translation of Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out: a cognitive narratology perspective” provides an innovative approach to analyze narration and transgression in Goldblatt's rendition. Gatherer cites the Chinese avant-garde literature as the best representative of self-reflexivity in postmodern literature who needs translators' free translation so as to keep the vitality of the original text.Overall, the great contribution of the book is that it depicts Chinese literature in translation with the historical record as the vertical axis and the translation studies as the horizontal one, making up for the map of Western publishing and academics related to Chinese literature translation studies. Centered around interlingual translation from Chinese to English in most chapters, the collection also covers issues of intralingual and semiotic translation. Uganda Sze Pui Kwan and Carlos Rojas refer to the difference between local dialect and mandarin Chinese, while Nicholas Jose presents a brief stage history of Lady Precious Stream in Australia, which touches the semiotic transfer from textual to verbal language. Besides, the book also copes with some meticulous details in the translation process with the help of archives. For example, the coordination and negotiation between agent and publisher in terms of selection, modification, censorship, and so forth, which is conducive to restoring the historical scene of each work and providing more authentic description on translation process. As far as the complexity of literary translation is concerned, collaboration is testified to be a suitable model for Chinese literature.The book is a brilliant collection devoted to various works with multifaceted topics, it invites further inquiry. In terms of genre diversity, more types are expected to display the intricacy of Chinese literature in a more comprehensive way. Although since Liang Qichao's composition of the New Fiction in 1902, novels or fiction have always been the major literary genre of Chinese literature, other literary types such as vernacular poetry and drama had also made their development to an unneglectable extent. It is a little disappointing to find the unbalanced proportion of literary genre, with only one play being studied. Moreover, the book endeavors to portray a history of Chinese literature in translation, there are still some missing points. For instance, Ai-ling Chang, an important figure in modern Chinese literature, a priority by C. T. Hsia in A History of Modern Chinese Fiction (1961). Her unique style makes her reputation no lower than that of Lao She in the west. But it is a pity that there is no article talking about her writing and translating, which may make readers question the criteria of the text selection. When talking about the issue of cultural identity in postcolonial translation studies, Dung Kai Cheung's Atlas in Hong Kong literature does provide a proper example of finding a lost culture. However, readers will be more satisfied if Taiwan literature was taken into consideration to present another similar case as that of Hong Kong. Last but not least, most chapters concerning the reception of Chinese literature are inadequate in their discussions of the intertextuality of Sino-Anglo literature, nor of the role translated literature plays in shaping, influencing, or inspiring Western literature from the perspectives of “world literature and intercultural communication” (2). Regardless of these potential limits, the collection is still a valuable publication for readers who are interested in Chinese literary translation from both theory and practice.