Worlding contemporary Chinese science fiction : patronage, translation, and reception

Abstract

This study explores to what extent contemporary Chinese science fiction (SF) may have become world literature by examining the genre’s increasing presence in the US-headed Anglophone market in the last decade (2011–2020). Specifically, it traces the arc of the worlding from the patronage of translation, the translating process, to the reception of these translations among English-speaking readers. By incorporating David Damrosch’s concept of world literature as a mode of circulation and reading and André Lefevere’s conception of translating as rewriting, this study investigates the worlding mechanisms behind the genre’s recent emergence in the English-speaking world and how effectively these translated works are read as world literature. Using a qualitative approach with textual and paratextual analyses and a few statistical data, the study will add to the current research on the international outreach of contemporary Chinese SF from a new theoretical perspective, with new cases that have never been studied.

The dissertation comprises three main analytical parts. First, it focuses on the patronage models of SF translation as the premise and inception of its worlding process. After analyzing the organizational structure and decision-making bodies in Chinese SF translation projects, it demarcates four patronage models featuring state-owned agencies, collaborative commercial institutions, US-based literary professionals, and transnational literary agents, respectively. They constitute a patronage matrix headed by the state as the arch-patron. Then the study probes into the ideological thrust of the arch-patron’s worlding efforts to explore how worlding SF contributes to the country’s pursuit of stronger soft power.

Second, the study examines the translation process by focusing on the translatorial intervention in translating political elements, editorial intervention in translating female characters, and publishers’ intervention in translating book covers. It demonstrates that in worlding Chinese SF, translation is subject to various manipulations in the publishing practice of the target market. The arch-patron’s role is diminished at this stage.

Third, the study discusses the reception of translated Chinese SF to assess the effectiveness of its status as world literature. It first discusses the distribution of these works in public markets and library collections and then analyzes target readers’ reading approach, perception of China, and attitudes toward Chinese SF’s growing visibility. The results reveal that only a few titles have acquired effective readership because of better market access. In terms of the arch-patron’s goal of enhancing soft power, it has achieved partial success.

The study provides a panoramic and retrospective view of the ongoing worlding process of contemporary Chinese SF. Integrated into the state’s cultural diplomacy, worlding SF is a nuanced approach targeted mainly at the mass market. However, when the top-down design of the cultural project meets the open-endedness of world literature reading, its effectiveness in terms of the genre’s status as world literature and the worlding efforts becomes questionable.