Deborah Smith’s infidelity: The Vegetarian as feminist translation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Deborah Smith’s English translation of the Korean author Han Kang’s novel, The Vegetarian (London: Portobello) won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. However, her creative approach has been highly controversial in South Korea (where literal translation is dominant) by provoking a heated discussion on its mistranslations. Against many critics’ disapproval, I argue that Smith’s translation is a good example of feminist translation: while she retains and reinforces the feminist elements of the Korean source text, she intervenes in the text from a feminist perspective when it more clearly registers patriarchal Korean society. She achieves her feminist ambitions through addition and omission in her feminist treatment of the main characters. Two husbands are described as more patriarchal while the solidarity between two sisters are strengthened with In-hye becoming more independent and an active owner of her own life in the target text. Such a feminist translation is significant: Smith resists the oppressive patriarchal logic at the heart of translation’s myth of fidelity like the radical politics of the heroine’s vegetarianism.