Cover not available
Article published In:
FORUM
Vol. 15:1 (2017) ► pp.28–50

Translating the socialist nation

Exporting Chinese literature under the People’s Republic of China (1949–1966)

| School of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou University, China
The first seventeen years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC, 1949–1966) was a critical period for the newly established nation to gain international recognition. The period witnessed a unique translation activity, i.e. SL-generated translation of a large number of classical and modern Chinese literature into English and other foreign languages. These state-sponsored translations were mainly undertaken by teams of Chinese and foreign translators in the Foreign Languages Press (FLP) in Beijing. This paper aims to explore how literary translation was used for nation branding and promoting Chinese communism abroad. It reveals the political agenda behind the outward translation activity. It goes on to probe into the patronage of the FLP to disclose the relationship between the translating institution and the political discourse on the nation. Lastly, the study of the English translation of Linhai Xueyuan (林海雪原), i.e. Tracks in the Snowy Forest, a bestseller representative of the ‘revolutionary novel’ of the time, will show that the adaptations aim at recasting revolutionary characters as “perfect” heroes so as to project an ideal image of the modern Chinese nation. The paper concludes with a call to integrate outward translation into TS. Based on Luhmann’s sociology of communication it provides a preliminary observation on the reception of the PRC’s export enterprise, which, more often than not, turned out to be counterproductive.
Keywords: outward translation, nation branding, Foreign Languages Press, Chinese socialist realism, Tracks in the Snowy Forest
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.The politics of outward translation
    • 2.1Patronage of outward translation
      • 2.1.1Political function of outward translation
      • 2.1.2Producing English translations of Chinese literature in the FLP
      • 2.1.3FLP translators
  • 3.Recasting hero images into official models: Tracks in the Snowy Forest
  • 4.A counterproductive translation project?
    • 4.1Outward translation as a fact of source society
    • 4.2Agency in outward translation
    • 4.3Reception
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 4 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.15.1.02ni
References (46)
References
Alley, Rewi. 2003. Rewi Alley: An Autobiography. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2003. Friend of China, the Myth of Rewi Alley. London; New York: Routledge Curzon. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brisset, Annie. 1996. A Sociocritique of Translation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Buzelin, Hélène. 2005. “Unexpected Allies. How Latour’s Network Theory could Complement Bourdieusian Analyses in Translation studies.” In the Translator, 11(2): 193–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. “Independent Publisher in the Networks of Translation.” TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 19 (1): 135–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dai, Yannian et al. eds. 1999. Zhongguo waiwenju wushinian dashiji [ The memorabilia of the China International Publishing Group (1949–1999) ]. Beijing: Xinxing Chubanshe [New Star Press].Google Scholar
Day, Tony. 2010. “Still Stuck in the Mud: Imagining World Literature during the Cold War in Indonesia and Vietnam”. In Cultures at War: The Cold War and Cultural Expression in Southeast Asia, eds. by Tony Day and Maya H. T. Liem, 131–169. SEAP Press, Cornell University. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dollerup, Cay. 1997. “Translation as imposition vs. translation as requisition”. In Translation as Intercultural Communication, eds. by Snell-Hornby, Mary, Zuzana Jettmarová, and Klaus Kaindl, 45–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Editor of Foreign Language Teaching and Research. 1962. “Yuzhongxinchan tan waiyu xuexi: ji Chen Yi fu zhongli dui waiyu xuesheng de yici tanhua”. [Talking about learning foreign languages: an address to foreign languages learners by Vice-premier Chen Yi]. Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu [Foreign Language Teaching and Research]11: 3–5.Google Scholar
Fan Zhonghui, ed. 1993. Zhongguo duiwai wenhua jiaoliu gailan [The Overview of Foreign Cultural Exchange in China]. Beijing: Guangming Ribao Chubanshe [Guangming Daily Press].Google Scholar
Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glissant, Édouard. 1997. Poetics of Relation [orig. Poétique de la Relation]. Translated by Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
He, Qifang. 1958. “Tan Linhai Xueyuan ” [On Tracks in Snowy Forest ]. In Hou Jinjing et al. Linhai xueyuan pingjia [Reviews on Linhai Xueyuan ], 24–30. Beijing: The Writers Publishing House.Google Scholar
Heilbron, Johan. 1999. “Towards a Sociology of Translation. Book Translations as a Cultural Word-System.” European Journal of Social Theory 2 (4): 429–444.Google Scholar
Hermans, Theo. 1985. The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary Translation. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Homles, James S. 2000. “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”. In Translation Studies Reader, ed. by Lawrence Venuti, 172–184. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hou, Jinjing. 1958. “Yi Bu Yingrenzhumu de changpian xiaoshuo – du Linhai Xueyuan” [An Absorbing novel: on Linhai Xueyuan ). In Hou Jinjing et al. Linhai xueyuan pingjia [Reviews on Linhai Xueyuan], 1–23. Beijing: The Writers Publishing House.Google Scholar
Inghilleri, Moira. 2003. “Habitus, Field and Discourse: Interpreting as a Socially Situated Activity”. Target 15(2): 243–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
, ed. 2005. Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translation. Special issue of The Translator 11(2). St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar
Jin, Hongyu. 2004. Zhongguo xiandai changpian xiaoshuo banben mingzhu banben jiaoping [A Bibliographic Study of the Masterpieces of the Modern Chinese Novel]. Beijing: The People's Literature Press.Google Scholar
Kenneth, S.H.Liu. 2006. “Translation and Cultural Exportation: A Case Study of Huang Chunming’s Short Stories”. In Translating Others (Vol. 21), ed. by Theo Hermans, 493–510. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Lau, S.M. Joseph. 1995. “More than putting things together: The anthologizing of Chinese literature in translation”. In Translating Chinese literature, eds. by Eugene Eoyang and Lin Yao-fu, 221–230. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Lei, Ying. 2007. Yang Xianyi Zhuan [Biography of Yang Xianyi]. Hong Kong: Mingbao Publishing House.Google Scholar
Liu, Hong. 1996. “Pramoedya Ananta Toer and China: The transformation of a cultural intellectual”. Indonesia 611: 19–144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milton, John and Bandia, Paul. 2009. Agents of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ninkovich, F. A. 1981. The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Passin, Herbert. 1963. China's Cultural Diplomacy. New York: F.A Praeger.Google Scholar
Qu, Bo. 1958. Linhai Xueyuan. Beijing: The Writers Publishing House.Google Scholar
. 1962. Tracks in the Snowy Forest. Translated by Sydney Shapiro. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
Shan, Dexing. 2009. Fanyi yu mailuo [Translation and Contexts]. Taipei: Shu Lin Publishing Ltd.Google Scholar
Simeoni, Daniel. 1998. “The pivotal status of the translator’s habitus.” Target 10(1): 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sun, Zhili. 1996. Woguo yingmei wenxue fanyi gailun: 1949–1966. [Conspectus of translation of Anglo-American literature in China: 1949–1966]. Nanjing: Yi Lin Publishing House.Google Scholar
Toury, Gideon. 1980. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotic.Google Scholar
Tyulenev, Sergey. 2010. “Translation in Intersystemic Interaction: A case study of eighteenth-century Russia”. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 23 (1): 165–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. Applying Luhmann to Translation Studies: Translation in Society. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 1999. Translation in a Postcolonial Context: Early Irish Literature in English Translation. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
. 2005. “Trajectories of Research in Translation Studies.” Meta 50 (4): 1082–1097. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Volland, Nicolai. 2007. “Translating the socialist state: cultural exchange, national identity, and the socialist world in the early PRC”. Twentieth-century China 33(2): 51–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Liaoying. 1958. “Wo de yinxiang he ganxiang” [My impression and thoughts]. In Hou Jinjing et al., Linhai xueyuan pingjia [Reviews on Tracks in the Snowy Forest], 31–36. Beijing: The Writers Publishing House.Google Scholar
Wolf, Michaela and Alexandra Fukari, eds. 2007. Constructing a Sociology of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yang, Xianyi. 2002. White Tiger. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Zha, Mingjian. 2004. “Ideology and the formation of the canons of translation literature in 1950s and 1960s of the 20th century”. Comparative Literature in China 55 (2): 86–102.Google Scholar
. 2001. “Ideology, selection, norm and repertoire: a polysystemic view of literature translation in Mainland China from the 1950s to the 1970s”. Chung-wai Literature Monthly (3): 63–92.Google Scholar
Zhao, Xifang. 2006. “Wushi Niandai De Meiyuan Wenhua Yu Xianggang Xiaoshuo”. [U.S.-financed culture and Hong Kong novels in ’50s]. Twenty-First Century (98): 87–96.Google Scholar
Zhou, Dongyuan et al. eds. 1999. Zhongguo waiwenju wushinian: shiliao xuanbian (1) [Fifty years of the Chinese Foreign Languages Bureau: selected archives documents (1949–1999)(Vol.1)]. Beijing: Xinxing Chubanshe [New Star Press].Google Scholar
Zhou, Yang. 1958. “Wenyi zhanxianshang de yichang dabianlun” [A Great Debate on the Battle Lines of Literature and the Arts]. In People's Daily, 28 February.Google Scholar
Cited by (7)

Cited by seven other publications

Wu, Yun & Mengying Jiang
2024. Revisiting directionality in China's “outward translation”. International Journal of Applied Linguistics DOI logo
Xu, Yang & Xiaoyan Wang
2024. Translation as image rewriting: the case of Chinese red novels. The Translator ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ni, Xiuhua
2022. Cold War Cultural Diplomacy in Outward State Translation of Chinese Literature in the PRC (1949–1966). Asian Studies Review 46:3 ► pp. 530 ff. DOI logo
Jiang, Mengying
2021. Translation as cultural diplomacy: a Chinese perspective. International Journal of Cultural Policy 27:7 ► pp. 892 ff. DOI logo
Di Toro, Anna
2020. The Scholars, Chronique indiscrète or Neoficial’naja istorija? The Challenge of Translating Eighteenth-Century Chinese Irony and Grotesque for Contemporary Western Audiences. In The Palgrave Handbook of Humour, History, and Methodology, ► pp. 459 ff. DOI logo
Valdeón, Roberto A. & Youbin Zhao
2020. Literary translation research in China. Perspectives 28:5 ► pp. 645 ff. DOI logo
Kim, Jeong-yeon
2019. Mondialisation de la littérature et littérature mondiale – Traduction d’une culture « mineure » vers une culture « centrale ». Lebende Sprachen 64:1 ► pp. 122 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 september 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.