Literary Translators' Brand-Building in Contemporary Chinese-English Translation

This book builds on nascent research in the human dimension of literary translators to shed light on the evolution and impact of translators' brand-building, focusing on case studies from contemporary Chinese-English literary translation and their ripple effects in the global literary translation landscape. Zhang deftly integrates research on branding from marketing, management, and publishing studies and sociological theories of translation to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the literary translator's brand. This framework approaches brand-building on three interrelated levels: intra-field (brand input), inter-field (brand investment), and inter-cultural (brand reception) levels. It offers a novel analytical lens that complements, and differs from, existing tools used to examine literary translators' presence, such as visibility, translator-function, the translator's professional status, and celebrity translators. As applied to the case of three leading figures in the field of contemporary Chinese-English literary translation - Howard Goldblatt, Nicky Harman, and Ken Liu - the approach elucidates the multifaceted role literary translators inhabit beyond the translation process and the power of their brand names in the international literary exchanges. The book highlights the possibilities for new research on literary translator's brand-building in other contexts and the fruitfulness of an interdisciplinary approach to literary translation more broadly. This volume will be of interest to scholars in literary translation, sociology of translation, translation theory, publishing studies, and contemporary Chinese literature.