| The publicity of Korean literature to the world can be traced back to late19th century. However, the real opening of Korean literature started from1980’ s, with the emergence of lots of literature institutes and translation fund aiming to introduce Korean literature to worldwide. It reached full and complete deve lopment in the90’s, particularly after the establishment of Korean Literature Tr anslation Institute in2001, which provide systematic and constant support for t he dissemination of Korean literature in the world. As a result, publication of t ranslation on Korean literature was steadily on the rise, especially after the est ablishment of diplomatic relation between China and Korea. The number of tra nslation works rose year by year, mostly of which were popular literature. The re did exist pure literature articles, but the number was very limited at the mo ment.This essay explores the development of Korean literature translation in C hina, starting from the establishment of diplomatic relation between Korea and China in1992. Firstly, this essay introduces the background and specific activit ies to promote Korean literature to the world. In the neighboring countries, Jap anese literature set a successful example which stimulates and inspires Korean greatly. Domestically, the economic growth and popularity of Korea Wave has generated certain experience and strong confidence. Against this background, K orea start to promote its literature to the work with great enthusiasm. Remarka ble results have been achieved so far, particularly the official institute Korean Literature Translation Institute and the private institute Daesan Foundation have played a crucial role in this process. Above will be discussed in detail in Ch apter Two and Chapter Three.Chapter Four mainly deals with the analysis of present Chinese translatio n of Korean literature in China. Taking Chinese translation of Korean literature provided by Korean Literature Translation Institute as data of research, this es say reorganize and analyzes the characteristics and problems of translated work s based on writer, translator and the press respectively. Of all funded writers, Wanseo Park, the Evergreen in Korean literature and Jooyoung Kim, the walki ng novelist, are most popular because of their writing style of traditional Kore an culture. Other writers are also very popular with abundant Korean characteri sties in their works, such as Dongni Kim, Kyungni Park, Cheongjun Lee, Won il Kim etc. Writers like HeeKyung Im, Kyeongsook Shin, Minkyu Park, Young ha Kim, mostly aged between40-60, are representative and have great potentia1to move on. Among all the translators, Hanmei from the Korean Department of Shandong University hold the largest amount of the translation fund. Hanmei and other scholar-translator are the main force in translating pure Korean liter ature. There does exist some Korean translators, but the number is quite limited due to their limited Chinese. As for freelance translator, they are mostly conc erned about public literature, with the couple Xuezhou and Xe Lihong as leadin g pioneer in introducing Korean literature, whose large number of works cover both public literature and pure literature. In recent years, they are more inclin ed toward translating pure literature, focusing more on quality rather than quan tity. As for Press, Shanghai Translation Publishing House hold the largest transl ation fund, then followed by People’s Literature Publishing House, Jilin Univers ity Press, Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House. These Press are of diffe rent kinds, including comprehensive press, academic press, literary and art pres s, press specialized in children’s books and press of specific fields.Taking Please look after Mom as a classic case, which has been a succe ss in entering the overseas market in recent years, the author analyzes its popu larity in USA and disappointing sale in China, with an aim of finding out the reasons behind and questions reflected by the difference in sales. The success of Please look after Mom in USA can be attributed to the perfect cooperatio n of agencies, translator, editor and the press. Another indispensable factor is t he influence played by book reviews of translated works. Positive or negative comments on the writer and the book has a great impact on the readers. In co mparison, the Chinese version lacks a unified and well-cooperated translation p ublishing system and therefore cannot influence and echo with the readers.Lastly, the essay summarize five points out of the experience and lessons drawn from present situation of Korean literature translation in China, which are listed as below. In the first place, translators should be those who mainly practices translation in the target language country, as their identity would mak e them more convenient in dealing with editing, modification, propaganda and other publishing activities after finishing the translation. In the second place, th e target works should be those praised or advocated by scholars and commenta tor in translator’s own country. However, if the works happen to be marginal li terature which have not attracted too much attention, then the choice could be made toward those excellent works which can echo with reader in content and possess little cultural theme difficult for the target reader.In the third place, the combination of different participants in the publishi ng process should also be highly valued. A complete system with writer-agent-t ranslator in good cooperation is very important as it will help to combine the translation-edition-publishing-advertising together as a whole. Fourth, strict quali ty control of translated works after the publication is needed and further efforts should be made to perfect the translation quality commentating system, so tha t translation and editing could be improved through post-translation managemen t. Fifth, in order to correctly view and develop East Asian literature, we have to get rid of western prospective. Both Korea and China imitated Japan’s succe ssful way of opening literature to the world. However, from its essence, literat ure should, with the aim of achieving Goethe’s so-called world Literature, surp ass the boundary of country, boldly embrace the world and leave excellent ever-lasting literary classics to the future generation.Viewed from the perspective of Goethe’s World Literature, the globalizatio n of Korean Literature is in fact a dynamic process during which the marginal Korean traditional literature encounter, compete and grow together with other different literature of the world. Moreover, it is also a process of enriching an d broadening the world literature. By reviewing and analyzing this process, this thesis attempts to explore or invite interest toward how literature develop itsel f and how literature can participate in the construction of a world literature, w hich the author believe is extremely important not only to Chinese literature or Asian literature, but to all the non-western literature as well. |
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