Rewriting a foreign novel through a collaborative approach between an interpreter and a writer: the translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the Chinese landscape

Abstract

ABSTRACT Whether readers decide to accept or reject the translation of foreign literary works depends on a variety of linguistic, literary, cultural and social factors. This paper attempts to explore how the collaborative approach between an interpreter and a writer can effectively address these interrelated factors that constrain the reception of translations of foreign literary works through a case study of Wei Yi and Lin Shu’s translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the early twentieth-century China. By leveraging their respective expertise as an interpreter and a writer, they rewrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the linguistic, literary, cultural and social landscape of China through various translation strategies such as additions, deletions, abridgments and adaptations. The paper argues that Wei Yi and Lin Shu’s collaboration as an interpreter and a writer facilitated a more appropriate contextualisation and reception of the Chinese translation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin among the target readership in the early twentieth-century Chinese landscape. By studying the collaboration between an interpreter and a writer in rewriting a foreign novel, this research is expected to provide some valuable insights into literary translation across different countries.