On Style Reproduction Of Mo Yan’s "Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out"

The translation of Mo Yan’s works has, to some extent, led to Mo Yan’s winningthe Nobel Prize2012for Literature and has set a successful example for thedissemination of contemporary Chinese literature. Focusing on case studies fromGoldblatt’s translation of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, this thesis hasdiscussed the English reproduction of the original styles, aiming to shed some lightupon the overseas dissemination of contemporary Chinese literature.The literature review of Chapter One sorts out previous studies on Mo Yan’swriting style as well as on the overseas dissemination of his works. Chapter Twoanalyzes the story-telling style and its reproduction through the translation of chaptertitles and triangle narrative perspectives. Chapter Three discusses the reproduction ofsensory beauty embodied in short sentences, metaphors, and synesthesia. ChapterFour is about the reproduction of irony displayed in animal perspectives, parody, andthe characters’fates.Generally speaking, Goldblatt’s translation is beautiful in language and loyal tothe original style, but the omission strategy for blocks of paragraphs is controversial,and the standard of abridgement remains open to question. Moreover, the cooperationof domestic and foreign translators offers to be a mode worth trying to keep both thelanguage fluency as well as the culture-loaded factors. Only when the translatorgrasps the original style could a translation with vitality be born.