Translation Zones in Modern China: Authoritarian Command Versus G ...

Finally, my focus throughout this book is on literary translation, and translations of other kinds (e.g., “client fields” such as medical, financial, legal, or religious translations) are mentioned only in passing. The distinction between literary and other kinds of translations is by no means a simple matter either in theory or in practice,¹³ however, and the discussion of state-sponsored institutionalized translation in part 1 includes both kinds.

Translations, Publishers, and Audiences

In translations of modern Chinese literature into English in China and other countries during the 1980s, the translator’s role varied between active and passive extremes, in categories that overlapped but each had its own typical translation mode, publication style, and audience.

Academic translation was usually initiated by the translator and published for an academic audience by an academic press; each work would have a scholarly apparatus including such items as an introduction, notes, and a glossary. These translations were generally reliable and provided helpful background information and commentaries to explain nuances in meaning and significance. One problem was that the academic apparatus tended to be so cumbersome that the work became virtually unreadable by other audiences. Although they were expensive to produce, these translations rarely provided much income for either the translator or the writer (and the writers were often dead). The new series Fiction from Modern China, established in 1994 under its general editor Howard Goldblatt for the University of Hawai’i Press, is an example of academic publication that is helpful rather than intimidating.

Commercial translation was usually initiated by a translator or by a literary agent or publisher, all parties sharing the aim of attracting a broad audience. The translator and writer were paid by the translation publisher in the form of a fee, royalty or salary (or some combination of these three), and it was hoped that the work would reach wide audiences. It rarely did. Examples are works by Mo Yan and Su Tong which were published by subsidiaries of Penguin and HarperCollins in the 1990s.