Open AccessAwkward Betweenness and Reluctant Metamorphosis: Eileen Chang’s Self-Translation
Author(s) -
Hui Meng
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
transcultural
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1920-0323
DOI - 10.21992/tc29529
Subject(s) - hybridity , skopos theory , translation studies , sociology , focus (optics) , perspective (graphical) , multitude , mirroring , self , aesthetics , epistemology , literature , psychology , communication , social psychology , art , anthropology , visual arts , philosophy , physics , optics
This article studies Eileen Chang’s (1920-1995)’s self-translation as a cultural mediation between two worlds. Different from the previous studies which either focus mainly on a single work or interpret from the perspective of Sinophone studies, this article presents a relatively inclusive view of Chang’s self-translation by contrasting her practices in the 1940s with that of the post-1950s, examining the changing Skopos that dictates how she conducted and metamorphosized her self-translations and the paradoxical relationship between her writings and her self-translations. In today’s heterotopic world where cultures converge, intersect, and interact in a multitude of ways and places, Chang’s self-translation and rewriting presents less as a study of the schizophrenically divided world but more as a study of metamorphosis, transition, and hybridity across borders.