A Report On The Translation Of It Can’t Happen Here

The writer translated chapter26to chapter31of It Can’t Happen Here offered by theforeign language teaching and research press. This is a long novel written in1935by afamous American writer Sinclair Lewis, mainly describes a charismatic and power-hungrypolitician, Windrip, is elected president of the United States on a populist platform, promisingto restore the country to prosperity and greatness. Once in power, however, he becomes adictator, never makes his promises come true. Its plot centers on newspaperman DoremusJessup’s belated realization of what is happening, and his subsequent struggle against thefascist regime of President Windrip, mainly publishes and sends out the reactionary outlets.This novel mainly describes the depressing and the stirring of America, just as he said in hisNobel Lecture, at the same time, it reflects the fears of essentially moderate people likeSinclair Lewis that those desperate conditions of the thirties would sooner or later leave themno other choice than revolution.Chapter26-chapter31that the writer translated mainly tells us about the protagonist,Jessup, gradually realizes what is happening in the United States, and finally calls up hisneighbors who are not satisfied with the system of the government to publish and send out thereactionary outlets. At last, he is arrested and is put into prison, where he suffers a lot butnever gives up.The requirements of this translation job are higher than before, and the translatorsearched the information about the writer at first, including his writing skills, his differentwriting styles in different writing periods. Then, the translator read and analyzed this novel,especially chapter26to chapter31intensively. Within the restriction of the translationplatform, the translator mainly adopted literal translation; during the translation process, many kinds of important and difficult points appeared, such as the translations of the long and hardsentences, the translation of the proper nouns, the transform of the characteristics of somewords, the descriptions of the sceneries and scenes, and the descriptions of people’smentalities.Through this translation job, the translator got self-improvement both in translationtheories and in translation practices, and realized the shortcomings at the same time, and willtry harder to translate works well.