Xuanmin Luo

Translating, rewriting or trans-writing? A case study of Eileen Chang’s self-translation of Jinsuo Ji

Regarded as “a rewriting of an original text” (Lefevere 1999), a translation functions as an independent literary product in a target culture. When a writer translates his or her own work, “trans-writing” is perhaps a better term than “rewriting.” This paper will focus on Eileen (Ai-ling) Chang’s self-translation of her novel Jinsuo Ji (The Rouge of the North), first published in Chinese in 1945. There are major differences between the original and its translation: changes in plot and characters, added explanations of Chinese customs, for example. This paper will highlight the ways in which this self-translation can be considered a case of trans-writing, illustrating the writer’s efforts to mediate and negotiate between two cultures. The success of the translation is particularly significant, since it paved the way for Chinese literature to be accepted worldwide. This not an isolated example; the case can be applied to self-translation by writers elsewhere.

Keywords: self-translation, trans-writing, Eileen Chang, Chinese literature

Biography

Xuanmin Luo is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Director of the Center for Translation and Interdisciplinary Studies at Tsinghua University. Prof Luo is a founding editor of the Foreign Languages and Translation journal. He has held fellowships at Cambridge University, Salzburg, and Yale University, was a Fulbright Research Scholar at UCLA, and has been a member of advisory boards of learned societies and scholarly journals in China and around the world. His research interests include Translation Studies, Comparative Literature and discourse analysis.