The "Other" And The "Companion" Of Vietnamese Comtemporary Literature

In this dissertation, we investigate the activities of translation, introduction, study and reception of Chinese New Era fiction (from the late1970s to the early1990s) in Vietnam. Chinese New Era Fiction is an important part in Chinese contemporary literature. After30years, the revision of Chinese New Era fiction has still provoked critical debates in China. Chinese New Era fiction has been introduced into Vietnam since late1980s that means it has experienced a20years of presence in Vietnam. As a subject of translation, introduction, study, basing on its own social and historical context, Vietnam has chosen, introduced, studied and received Chinese New Era fiction. Thus, our study "Chinese New Era Fiction in Vietnam" would like to give new explaination about Chinese New Era Fiction in Vietnam from the perspective of an "Other"We classsify Chinese New Era Fiction in Vietnam into two parts:short story-novella and novel. We also concern ourselves with the variety of Vietnames translators who belong to different generations and have different point of view on translation. The process of introducing and studying Chinese New Era Fiction in Vietnam could be divided into three stages:before1989, from1989to early1990and from1990s to present. Three stages reflect the shifting of Vietnam’s point of view on Chinese New Era Fiction:from political introduction and curious attitude to systematic studies connecting with current critical topics of Vietnamese contemporary literature.We have chose two novels":Zhang Xianliang’s Half of man is woman and Jia Pingwa’s The Abandoned Capital as case studies which best exemplify the life of Chinese New Era fiction in Vietnam. Zhang Xianliang’s novel was first published in China in1985and was translated and published in Vietnam in1989and Jia Pingwa’s novel was first published in China in1993and then first appeared in Vietnam through translation in1999. The process of translation, publication, reprinting, distribution, introduction, study and reception of two novels is indeed a complicated history in which the translators’ choices, the rewriting of the original work, the power of the publishing houses in Vietnam, the theme of sex and intellectual in these novels are the most interesting problems.As a recapitulation and also a development of this dissertation, the last chapter discusses the relation between Chinese New Era fiction and Vietnamese contemporary literature in three aspects:influence, reception and comparison. We focus on three highlights:Chinese New Era fiction and Vietnamese literature of Doi Moi period; Chinese New Era fiction and the "Rethinking" tendency in Vietnamese contemporary literature and Chinese New Era fiction and translated literature in Vietnam. Our discussion, in one hand, confirm the close connection between Chinese New Era fiction and Vietnamese contemporary literature and in other hand, we also point out and give explaination to the limits of the introduction and reception of Chinese New Era Fiction in Vietnam.The fate of a literary work, in a great level, is decided by the reading and reception of the reader. Translation is indeed a special kind of reading and reception in which the logic and the accidental of history, the cultural encounter and conflict combined are entangled in a complex system. Chinese New Era fiction, through the acts of translation, introduction, study and reception in Vietnam, has possessed a new fate and then become a "Companion" with Vietnamese contemporary literature.