Translating politically against both the author and the reader: A comparative study of
the Mandarin Chinese translations of American writer Peter Hessler’s River Town
It is widely known that official censorship has exerted strong influences on translation
in China, causing politically sensitive passages in the original to be omitted, shortened
or modified in translations legally published there. Yet, things may not have been as
simple as they seem to be, especially when a Chinese translator ideologically sides
with his/her government against foreign authors by turning negative (sometimes
matter-of-fact) comments on or accounts of China into positive ones through
translation. This may be best demonstrated through comparison of the two Mandarin
Chinese translations of American writer Peter Hessler’s River Town (2001), in which
the author documented his contact with Chinese locals and his observation about
China in an accurate and meticulous manner. The great success of the book has earned
its author a reputation as “one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on
modern China" (Hessler, 2010: back cover) and prompted the book to be separately
translated and published in China and Taiwan to meet the needs of Mandarin readers
who wish to know how China is understood by the West. The comparison of the
translations shows that the image of China tends to be protected or beatified in the
China version not only through omission but also through addition and re-editing
procedures, thus presenting its Chinese readers with a China interpreted from Chinese
perspectives rather than from Western ones. The results of the study clearly show the
profound impact of politics on translation and the politicization of translation.