Analysis Of Translation And Reception Of Fusang From The Perspective Of Cultural Filertering

The novel Fusang is typically recognized as one of the most representativeworks penned by Yan Geling, the acclaimed immigrant writer in America, andthrough its poignant revelation of the early Chinese immigrant experience and itsaudacious exploration of the cultural conflict between the East and West, the bookalso holds an important position in sinophone Chinese American diaspora literature.The translated version, titled The Lost Daughter of Happiness, also garnered greatfavor and enthusiasm from the American general public and hit the The Los AnglesTimes bestseller list in2001, which is an unusual success for translated signophoneliterature in America.Compared with the contemporary literature from Chinese mainland, Chineseimmigrant literature in America boasts its own distinguishing features and advantagesin the translation and introduction process, and should be worthy of more scholarlyattention. However, up to now, research effort is still gravely lacking in this field.Inspired by the concept of “cultural filtering” from comparative literature studies,this thesis sets out to sort out and analyze the deletions and simplifications which arealmost omnipresent in the translated version. Based on the perusal of both the originalbook and the translated version, three dimensions are closely examined, namelylanguage style, traditional culture and ideology. Following that, this thesis also looksinto the reception of the translation, weighing the gains and losses of “culturalfiltering” through professional literary criticism, mainstream book reviews, commonreaders’ feedback, and market performance. It is found that, despite the undisturbedreading experience and impressive market success, problems also exist like thecharacters which appear to be inscrutable, political messages which fail to get across,and language style which cannot be reproduced. Finally, the thesis analyzes the two important factors which have played a special role in the translation of Fusang,namely the commercial press and the special identity of immigrant writer, hoping toshed some light on the translation of Chinese contemporary literature.