What to translate? How a Literary Translator Can Support or Oppose the Official Discourse

The key role of literary translators in the selection of the texts for translation is the main topic of this paper: how their view of their own culture and their ideas of what the their culture needs guide their choice, and how their choice influences eventually the target culture as a whole. In the particular context of Maoist China, the translator’s work and the selection of the texts to be translated were under strict control; nevertheless, translators enjoyed more free space for counter discourse than original writers: the foreign writer’s cover protected what Bei Dao called the “quiet revolution” (1993). A smart use of the foreign writer’s biography was frequently adopted by the translators as a way to introduce topics, discourses and styles not in line with the official discourse: well known is the example of Dai Wangshu’s translations of Garcia Lorca. The paper analyses the selection process and the translation projects of two important translators: Li Liangmin, active from the 50s to the 80s, supporting the official guideline, looked after bright examples and heroes to propose to people, as the great Spartacus; and Lü Tongliu, the “father” of Italian literature in China, active from the 60s to 2000, concentrated on the discourse on human being and his quest for the sense of life, detached from the political discourse. As for the latter, on one hand his way of selecting texts follows his own cultural project, opposed to the official trend, but, on the other hand, his critic of the texts selected follows, at least until the end of the 80s, the guidelines of the official discourse.