Title
Freedom Over Seas: Eileen Chang, Ernest Hemingway, and the Translation of Truth in the Cold War
Document Type
Article
Annotation
Surveys the 1950s propaganda campaign waged between the US and China intended to influence political ideology throughout East Asia via the translation of great American and Russian writers into Chinese. Bo examines modernist Chinese writer Eileen Chang’s 1963 translation of The Old Man and the Sea for the United States Information Service (USIS) and subsequent effects this project had on the writing and translation into English of her own 1955 Chinese-language novel, The Rice-Sprout Song, also supported by the USIS. Bo argues that Chang transforms literary truth in her translation of The Old Man and the Sea and her own self-translated novel, seeking not faithful representation in her renditions, but rather “deeper literary truth based on equivocation.”
Published in
Comparative Literature
Volume
71
Issue
3
Date
2019
Pages
252-271
Citation
Bo, L. Maria. “Freedom Over Seas: Eileen Chang, Ernest Hemingway, and the Translation of Truth in the Cold War.” Comparative Literature 71, no. 3 (Sept. 1, 2019): 252-71.