ABSTRACT
This paper presents a diachronic overview of the English translations of Lu Xun’s short stories, which were divided into four stages with considered reasons, and cites the motives, strategies and reception of the English translations by the English-reading community at each stage. From the 1920s to the present time, the ever-improving quality of the translations has contributed to a wide audience and a large overseas readership of Lu Xun’s short stories. In each stage, the distinguished translators adopted different strategies based in part on their own criteria and the political and social environment of the time. Besides the descriptive study of the English translations of Lu Xun’s short stories, the paper discusses the translations of Lu Xun’s works by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, the renowned translators of Chinese literature, alongside the efforts of various other translators. Significant among the translators, the Yangs have contributed considerably to introducing Lu Xun’s works to the English-speaking world and have been an important reference for subsequent translators. With examples cited from the Yangs’ translations, noteworthy findings of this analysis include that the translation methods adopted by the Yangs include literal translation, literal translation with footnotes, down-playing and omission. Additionally, I illustrate how factors like ideology, poetics, and translator’s criteria can influence the choices of translators’ strategies and methods.
