Fidelity or infidelity? The mistranslation controversy over The Vegetarian

Sun Kyoung Yoon
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Abstract

This article examines the controversy over The Vegetarian (Han 2015), Deborah Smith’s English translation of Han Kang’s Korean novel, 채식주의자 Chaesikjuuija (2007). The translation, winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2016, provoked a heated discussion in South Korea. A close analysis of three influential articles – Cho (2017), B. Kim (2017), and W. Kim (2018) – shows how the debates on the supposed mistranslation of The Vegetarian are dominated by a preoccupation with fidelity and literal translation. They dismiss the translator’s interpretation or transformation, regarding accuracy or fidelity as the sole criterion for a good translation. Significantly, the critics’ advocacy of literal translation, and hence their objections to The Vegetarian, reflect three levels of political anxiety: over ‘superior’ translation, over ‘English’ translation, and over a female translator’s ‘feminist’ translation.

Keywords:
Publication history
Table of contents

Deborah Smith’s English translation of Han Kang’s Korean novel, 채식주의자 Chaesikjuuija, The Vegetarian (Han 2015), winner of the Man Booker International (MBI) Prize in 2016, provoked a heated discussion in South Korea, focusing on its supposed mistranslations. As the uproar intensified, both the English translator and the Korean author, who were bombarded with emails of complaint, defended their work and agreed to a corrected edition. Writing in the LA Review of Books, Smith (2018) defended her translation by saying that she had not betrayed the Korean original; at the same time, in an interview with the press, Han (2018) declared that the obvious mistakes in The Vegetarian were not obstacles to understanding the novel, nor did they make the English version a very different book from the Korean original. However, both novelist and translator agreed that to settle the issue of mistranslation, future printings of the translation would contain around sixty revisions. The controversy over Smith’s translation reflects the enduring power of fidelity as a qualitative judgment in Korean translation criticism and, more significantly, exposes some of the specificities of the politics of Korean–English translation.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price. Direct PDF access to this article can be purchased through our e-platform.

References

An, Sonjae
2002 “Literary Translation from Korean into English: A Study in Criteria.” Translation and Literature 11 (1): 72–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andone, Oana-Helena
2002 “Gender Issues in Translation.” Perspectives 10 (2): 135–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arnold, Matthew
1906Essays Literary & Critical. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Ashley, Bob, Joanne Hollows, Steve Jones, and Ben Taylor
2004Food and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barthes, Roland
1977 “The Death of the Author [orig. La mort de l’auteur ].” In Image – Music – Text, selected and translated by Stephen Heath, 142–148. London: Fontana Press.Google Scholar
Berman, Antoine
2009Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne [orig. Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne ], edited and translated by Françoise Massardier-Kenney. Kent: Kent State University Press.Google Scholar
Casanova, Pascale
2004The World Republic of Letters [orig. La république mondiale des lettres ]. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Chamberlain, Lori
1988 “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation.” Signs 13 (3): 454–472. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cho, Jae Ryong
2017 “번역은 무엇으로 사는가 [By what means does a translation win?]” 문학동네 [Munhakdongne] 24 (1): 689–713.Google Scholar
Damrosch, David
2003What is World Literature? Princeton: Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques
1981Positions [orig. Positions ]. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Godard, Barbara
1990 “Theorizing Feminist Discourse/Translation.” In Translation, History and Culture, edited by Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, 87–96. London: Cassel.Google Scholar
Hahn, Daniel
2015 “ The Vegetarian by Han Kang Review: An Extraordinary Story of Family Fallout.” Guardian, January 24, 2015. https://​www​.theguardian​.com​/books​/2015​/jan​/24​/the​-vegetarian​-by​-han​-kang​-review​-family​-fallout
Han, Kang
2007채식주의자 [The vegetarian]. Paju: Changbi.Google Scholar
2015The Vegetarian [orig. 채식주의자]. Translated by Deborah Smith. London: Portobello Books.Google Scholar
2018 “한강 ‘채식주의자’ 오역 60여개 수정...결정적 장애물 아냐 [Han Kang says about 60 mistakes of The Vegetarian will be revised... they are not crucial obstacles].” 연합뉴스 [Yonhapnews], January 29, 2018. https://​www​.yna​.co​.kr​/view​/AKR20180129083200005
Hewson, Lance
2011An Approach to Translation Criticism: Emma and Madame Bovary in Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jeong, Gwari
2017 “Is Globalizing Korean Literature Possible?” In 유영 번역상 10주년 기념 심포지움 및 시상식 [The 10th Youyoung translation award ceremony and translation symposium], 9–18. Seoul: Yonsei University Press.Google Scholar
Khakpour, Porochista
2016 “ ‘The Vegetarian,’ by Han Kang.” The New York Times, February 2, 2016. https://​www​.nytimes​.com​/2016​/02​/07​/books​/review​/the​-vegetarian​-by​-han​-kang​.html
Kim, Bunn
2017 “『채식주의자』와 The Vegetarian: 원작과 번역의 경계 [ Chaesikjuuija and The Vegetarian: The boundary between the original and its translation].” 영미문학연구 [Journal of English studies in Korea] 32: 5–34.Google Scholar
Kim, Dae-Joong
2016 “『채식주의자』 번역 속 의역/오역 사례를 통해 살펴본 번역가의 과제 연구 [A study on the translator’s task through analysing cases of mistranslation/liberal translation in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian ].” 인문과학연구 [The study of humanities] 51: 31–59.Google Scholar
Kim, Ga-Hee
2016 “해석과 창의적 다시쓰기로서의 문학번역: Vegetarian을 중심으로 [Literature translation as interpretative-creative rewriting: Focused on The Vegetarian ].” 영어권문화연구 [The journal of English cultural studies] 9 (3): 29–44.Google Scholar
Kim, Wook-Dong
2018 “The ‘Creative’ English Translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang.” Translation Review 100 (1): 65–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Huijai
2009번역의 탄생 [The birth of translation]. Seoul: Gyoyangin.Google Scholar
Lee, Hyung-jin
2008 “문학번역 평가의 딜레마와 번역비평의 방향 [Dilemma of literary translation evaluation and the orientation of translation criticism].” 안과밖: 영미문학연구 [In/outside: English studies in Korea] 24: 86–112.Google Scholar
2018 “한국문학의 영어번역, 논란과 논쟁을 번역하다 [English translation of Korean literature: Translating its arguments and controversy].” 번역학연구 [The journal of translation studies] 19 (4): 185–206.Google Scholar
Lee, Inkyu
2017 “『채식주의자』에 대한 데보라 스미스의 영어번역 어떻게 볼 것인가? [A critical study on Deborah Smith’s The Vegetarian as a translation].” 번역학연구 [The journal of translation studies] 18 (3): 173–205.Google Scholar
Montgomery, Charles
2014 “Allie Park interviews translator Deborah Smith (The Vegetarian).” Korean Literature in Translation, June 15, 2014. http://​www​.ktlit​.com​/allie​-park​-interviews​-translator​-deborah​-smith​-the​-vegetarian/
Sengupta, Mahasweta
1990 “Translation, Colonialism and Poetics: Rabindranath Tagore in Two Worlds.” In Translation, History and Culture, edited by Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, 56–63. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
SESK (Scholars for English Studies in Korea)
2005영미명작, 좋은 번역을 찾아서 [In search of good translations of great English literature]. Paju: Changbi.Google Scholar
Shin, Hyejung
2017 “데버러 스미스(Deborah Smith)의 『채식주의자』 다시쓰기: 번역 관점에서 본 문제점 및 향후 과제 [Deborah Smith’s rewriting of Ch’aesikjuuija: Thoughts from a translation perspective].” 한국콘텐츠학회논문지 [The journal of the Korea contents association] 17 (10): 657–666.Google Scholar
Shin, Kyung-sook
2008엄마를 부탁해 [Please look after mom]. Paju: Changbi.Google Scholar
2012Please Look after Mom [orig. 엄마를 부탁해]. Translated by Chi-young Kim. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Shin, Soo-Jeong
2010 “한강소설에 나타나는 ‘채식’의 의미 -『채식주의자』를 중심으로 [The meaning of being vegetarian in the novels of Han Kang: Focusing on The Vegetarian ].” 문학과환경 [Literature and environment] 9 (2): 193–211.Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry
1996Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Deborah
2018 “What We Talk About When We Talk About Translation.” LA Review of Books, January 11, 2018. https://​lareviewofbooks​.org​/article​/what​-we​-talk​-about​-when​-we​-talk​-about​-translation/
Tagore, Rabindranath
1912Gitanjali: Song offerings [orig. গীতাঞ্জলি]. Translated by Rabindranath Tagore. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tomson, Philip
1986그로테스크 [orig. The Grotesque ]. Translated by Kim Yeong-mu. Seoul: Seoul University Press.Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence
2008The Translator’s Invisibility. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Woo, Kyongjo
2018에코페미니즘적 주제의식 관점에서 본 한강의 『채식주의자』 영역본 분석 [A comparative analysis of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and its translation from the perspective of ecofeminist themes]. PhD diss. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
Yoon, Sun Kyoung
2021 “Deborah Smith’s Infidelity: The Vegetarian as Feminist Translation.” Journal of Gender Studies 30 (8): 938–948. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yun, Charse
2017 “How the bestseller ‘The Vegetarian,’ translated from Han Kang’s original, caused an uproar in South Korea.” Los Angeles Times, September 22, 2017. http://​www​.latimes​.com​/books​/jacketcopy​/la​-ca​-jc​-korean​-translation​-20170922​-story​.html