On Agatha Christie’s Translation In China From The Perspective Of Manipulation

Agatha Christie, widely known as “Queen of Crime”, is one of the three world masters indetective fiction writing together with Conan Doyle and Matsumoto Seichō. Her workshave always enjoyed a vast range of audiences, including Queen Elizabeth II and FrenchPresident Charles de Gaulle. Since her work was first rendered in Chinese and introducedinto China just before1949, they have been widely read and received especially after1980s. Meanwhile, her works have seldom aroused heated academic discussions orcriticism and the study on her translated works was sporadic and rare as well as lacking inprofoundity, scattering in a few journals and prefaces written by translators. Therefore, thisthesis aims to conduct a comparatively systematic, deep and comprehensive research onthe translation and reception of Agatha Christie’s works in China. To this end, the thesisdivides the whole process into three phases, summarizes the main characteristics of thesephases and applies Evan-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory and Andre Lefevere’s ManipulationTheory for a tentative probe into the role of poetics, ideology and patronage in terms of thetranslation and reception of literary works.