China as dystopia: Cultural imaginings through translation

This article explores how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It seeks to uncover the discourses at work in framing this literature for reception by an anglophone readership, and to suggest how these discourses dovetail with meta-narratives on China circu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTranslation studies Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. 251 - 268
Main Author Lee, Tong King
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.09.2015
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Anglophones
Censorship
Chinese languages
cultural politics
Culture
Discourse analysis
Knowledge
Literary translation
Mo Yan (1956- )
paratext
Readership
Reception
Semiotics
translated Chinese literature
Translations
Yan Lianke
China
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Summary:This article explores how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It seeks to uncover the discourses at work in framing this literature for reception by an anglophone readership, and to suggest how these discourses dovetail with meta-narratives on China circulating in the West. In addition to asking what gets translated, the article is interested in how Chinese authors and their works are positioned, marketed and commodified in the West through the discursive material that surrounds a translated book. Drawing on English translations of works by Yan Lianke, Ma Jian, Chan Koonchung, Yu Hua, Su Tong and Mo Yan, the article argues that literary translation is part of a wider programme of anglophone textual practices that renders China an overdetermined sign pointing to a repressive, dystopic Other. The knowledge structures governing these textual practices circumscribe the ways in which China is imagined and articulated, thereby producing a discursive China.
ISSN:1478-1700
1751-2921
DOI:10.1080/14781700.2015.1009937