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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 68:2 (2022) ► pp.290–306

Dung Kai-cheung’s Atlas in translation

| Wenzhou University
| Université d’Évry Paris-Saclay

This article examines issues of translation in Dung Kai-cheung’s 董啟章 novel Dituji: Yige xiangxiang de chengshi de kaoguxue 地圖集：一個想像的城市的考古學 (Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City). In the first instance, it provides structural analyses of the constraints shaping the translation of the writer’s work from Chinese to English. It moves on to comment on the imbrication of Hong Kong’s history of translation in the puns and other word games, as well as in the narrative thread. Lastly, it compares different partial English translations of significant passages to (re-)map the linguistic and cultural transfer of this major work of contemporary Hong Kong literature.

Keywords: Hong Kong, Hong Kong literature, literary translation, postcolonialism, hybridity, Dung Kai-cheung
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Translating literature in Hong Kong
  • Translating Dung Kai-cheung
  • Mapping Atlas in translation
  • Translating locality
  • Layers of translation
  • Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 11 March 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00261.gly
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