Focusing on English anthologies of Chinese avant-garde fiction published by UK and US publishers between 1993 and 2003, this thesis studies the translational path of this literary corpus to the Anglophone cultural context in the post-Tiananmen era. Particular attention is given to analysing the strategies employed to recontextualise the translations for the reception of the Anglophone readership, thereby revealing the extent to which the main characteristics of Chinese avant-garde fiction have been rewritten to accord with the ideological patterns pertaining to contemporary Chinese literature in the Anglophone cultural context. In so doing, this thesis aims to highlight the role of ideology and rewriting in the understanding of inter-literary relationships between China and Western countries.
The history of translations of contemporary Chinese literature into English demonstrates that contending ideologies between China and Western countries have fundamentally shaped the inter-literary relationships between them in the contemporary period, and resulted in the predominance of ideological forms of translation of Chinese literature in the Anglophone cultural context. Under these circumstances, a considerable number of Chinese avant-garde fictional works, which gained their fame in the Chinese cultural context for the pursuit of literary autonomy through radical experimentation with narrative techniques and language, were introduced to Anglophone readers through translation anthologies within a short period of time. This resulted in a boom in English translations of Chinese avant-garde fiction in the Anglophone cultural context in the post-Tiananmen era.
After outlining two categories of ideological frameworks concerning Chinese avant-garde fiction in translation, with one category more literary focused and the other inclined to convey political connotations, this thesis analyses the processes of translation selection, the paratextual strategies employed to frame the anthologies, and the approaches that translators used to transfer into English the textual features of Chinese avant-garde fiction. The analysis reveals the tendency to promote a politicised vision of Chinese avant-garde fiction through translation paratexts, to enhance the realistic effects and moral implications of the translated texts, and to standardise the stylistic language of Chinese avant-garde novelists. Consequently, Chinese avant-garde fiction which is characterised by its commitment to aesthetic experimentation and the detachment from socio-political engagements has been rewritten into texts that highlight the oppositional political nature of avant-gardism. These translation shifts affirm that ideological patterns developed during the Cold War had profoundly informed the ways in which Chinese avant-garde fiction was translated into English. A number of translation agents advocating the entry of Chinese avant-garde fiction into the Anglophone cultural system intended to use this aesthetically radical literary genre to challenge Anglophone readers’ stereotypical view of contemporary Chinese literature. This study, however, illuminates that the ways in which Chinese avant-garde fiction was translated has resulted in reinforcing Anglophone conceptions of contemporary Chinese writing as texts for societal documentation and the exposure of China’s excessive political power.