On the "Clamour of Voices" in Translation Anthologies of Contemporary Chinese Literature

Abstract

Anthologies of translated literature not only allow foreign literary works to enter the target culture but also to a certain extent serve to demonstrate, represent, and construct an image of the best literary works from a certain cultural tradition. Taking literary anthologies as an important means of presenting the Other and projecting the relationship between different literary traditions, this chapter offers a historical overview of the publication and influence of contemporary Chinese literary anthologies in the English-speaking world, focusing on the political and poetic factors that have influenced and manipulated the production and reception of these anthologies. Motivated by a dissatisfaction with the tendency of literary anthologies to be politicized and an insistence that intercultural literary interactions should be primarily literary-oriented, this chapter draws on David Der-wei Wang’s concept of the “clamour of voices” and makes a plea that translation anthology of contemporary Chinese literature should strive to construct a polyphonic literary space for a plurality of voices to be expressed and intersect. To avoid a simplistic understanding of the “clamour of voices” as an enumeration of sounds, this chapter takes By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas (Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016) as a case study to demonstrate the salience of the critical editor’s role in seeking meaningful connections between different texts, genres, and literary traditions and in organizing the multiplicity of voices in ways that they assemble into a genuinely engaging polyphony.