This paper explores the intersection of transcultural memory and the global recognition of Chinese literature through the lens of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Instead of describing the relationship between Chinese literary circles and the Prize as an irrational “Nobel complex,” this paper contends that the Nobel Prize provides a platform for the circulation of conflict-related memories across cultural boundaries, particularly those tied to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Focusing on the works of Gao Xingjian, the first Chinese-language Nobel laureate, and Mo Yan, the first Nobel laureate from mainland China, this paper examines the novels Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible by Gao, alongside the novels Frog and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan. These texts not only give voice to silenced histories but also confront questions of individual guilt and responsibility. By analyzing the narratives and the post-Nobel reception of Gao’s and Mo Yan’s works, this paper highlights the fluidity of conflict-related memories and their potential to unsettle entrenched ideological positions within and beyond mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Abstract: Professor Yue Daiyun and the comparative literature she established have always been closely intertwined with the process of China’s modernization, sharing its breath and destiny. The vicissitudes and trials of the times have shaped the foundational qualities of her character—profound love for her country and an unwavering sense of amor fati. Comparative literature, at its inception, was first and foremost a philosophy of critique and action, deeply rooted in Professor Yue’s concern and inquiry into the question, “What is the future of China?” To this end, Professor Yue focused her attention on the reception and development of modernism, realism, and conservatism in modern China. In practice, she pioneered three paradigms of comparative literature in China: influence studies, parallel studies, and a via media of humanities studies that bridges the two. These three paths encapsulate a microscopic view of the “three waves of modernity” in China. They represent not only Professor Yue’s practice of comparative literature but also her vision for the present and future of modern China. Comparative literature, for her, was both a lifelong pursuit of the humanistic way and a “Ship of Theseus” transmitted to contemporary times—a spirit of thought and action characterized by self-reflection, understanding others, and pluralistic dialogue, bridging the past and future through the unity of theoria and praxis.

Between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the Chinese literary field underwent a period of significant expansion in terms of translations of foreign literary works. This expansion was characterised by a diverse range of translated authors and genres, as well as various modes of translation (direct, indirect, and collaborative) and publication channels (novels, collections, and magazine articles). Italian literary works, although constituting a minority of the overall picture of translations circulating in China at the time, found their own space of circulation through intermediate translations from languages such as English and Japanese.

A notable figure in this regard was the writer Zhou Shoujuan (1895-1968), who translated Italian literary texts from English. Zhou was one of the most prolific and versatile writers of the first half of the twentieth century and a leading figure in the publishing world of the popular and entertaining literature of the so-called "Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies" strand. (Link 1981)

The focus of this talk will be two of Zhou's early translations of Italian authors, namely the 1917/18 translation of the humorous short story "Una separazione di letto e di mensa" by Salvatore Farina (1846- 1918) and the 1921 translation of the short story "Un intervento", an early work by the writer and journalist Matilde Serao (1856-1927), originally published as if an original work from Zhou. The two texts explore the dynamics of marriage in the face of the threat of separation, a subject that aroused great interest in a social context that was trying to rewrite the structure of emotional relationships and had significant echoes in Zhou’s love fiction (Lee 2007; Liu 2017; Liu 2024).

This paper will firstly reconstruct the international circulation of the two Italian stories across England, Germany, France, America, until their transmission to China, to identify the translations that served as the most likely intermediate sources for the Chinese versions. Secondly, it will examine the translation choices and strategies adopted by Zhou in his versions, focusing on the linguistic/stylistic strategies and the emotional dimensions of the texts.

Cited references

Lee Haiyan (2007). Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900-1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Link E. Perry (1981). Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-century Chinese Cities. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Liu Qian Jane (2017). Transcultural Lyricism. Translation, Intertextuality, and the Rise of Emotion in Modern Chinese Love Fiction. Leiden-Boston: Brill.

Liu Qian Jane (2024). “Bovaristic Renderings. Zhou Shoujuan’s Pseudotranslation and the Creation of an Alternative Romantic Space”. In Bruno C.; Klein L.; Song C. (eds). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation. London: Bloomsbury, 91-102.

“Verlaine’s influence on the Chinese Symbolist movement was most extensive and profound. [...] Perhaps it is indeed as Bian Zhilin said in the preface to Dai Wangshu’s Anthology of Poems [1981]: ‘The intimacy and suggestiveness of this foreigner’s poetry fit nicely into the main traditions of ancient Chinese poetry.’” While there are voices (Qian Linsen, French Writers and China, 2005) that would disagree with these remarks by critic Wang Jianzhao (Modernist Poetry in 20th-century China, 2006), the fact remains that several poems by Paul Verlaine have been constantly translated, discussed, and analyzed in Chinese contexts throughout the last hundred years. My contribution explores the fate of one such piece by the French Symbolist poet in Chinese translation.

More specifically, I concentrate on Verlaine’s well-known “Il pleure dans mon coeur.” After a brief overview and classification of the numerous renditions I have tracked down, I focus on exemplars illustrating different translatorial drives (vernacularization, professionalization, and poeticization, among others) governing the production of these versions since the early decades of the twentieth century until today. Next, I identify some of the reasons behind such translatorial excess and variety within Verlaine’s poetics of variegated ambiguity. Lastly, with a nod to Dai Wangshu and others, I highlight the constitutive embeddedness of translation in the very makeup of Chinese literary modernism.