Western Theory in East Asian Contexts

Leo Tak-hung Chan is Junwu Distinguished Professor at Guangxi University, China. His other scholarly books include Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese (2010), Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates (2004), and One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (2003).

• Introduction1.The Transtextual Triad, Similar but Not the SamePart 12. Freely Rendered: Aesop's Fables in Nineteenth-century China3. A Higher Loyalty? The (Ab)uses of Aesthetic Theories of TranslationPart 24. Adaptation Studies through a Translation Lens5. Accommodation and Adaptation—The Case of East Asia6. Boys over Flowers: Localization in a Web of (Re)adaptationsPart 37. The Vicissitudes of Imitatio, Historically8. “New Wine in Old Bottles”: Two Sino-Japanese Traditions of Imitation9. Receptive Transcreation: Simulating James Joyce’s Narrative Style10. The Aggregate Monkey: Parody and Pastiche in Japanese MangaConclusionAcknowledgments BibliographyIndex

Leo Tak-hung Chan’s latest book sets bold new parameters for translation studies by showing how this discipline needs to embed practices of adaptation and imitation at the core of its analysis. Taking this expanded field of translation studies as his point of departure, Chan presents richly intriguing case studies from East Asian writing – from free translations of Aesop’s fables to adaptations of contemporary manga to imitations of James Joyce – to show how cultural producers in the Sinosphere have creatively remade their source texts in ways that challenge ascendant theories of translation from the global North. This study will be mandatory reading for scholars and students of translation studies everywhere.