Eileen Chang: The Performativity of Self-Translation

Eileen Chang: The Performativity of Self-Translation by Jessica Tsui-yan Li focuses on the self-translation of Zhang Ailing 張愛玲 (Eileen Chang, 1920–1995), one of the most important Chinese writers of the twentieth century. Although self-translation is overlooked in most studies of her work, Chang’s literary achievements are attributed in part to her lifelong self-translation of her lived experiences and family sagas, as well as her bilingualism.

This book enriches current studies of self-translation by proposing a new hypothesis of theorizing self-translation as a performative act, characterized by its in-betweenness and the aesthetic freedom that the self-translator enjoys, contextualized within larger debates about translation and the specific practice of self-translation in Chinese history in comparison to its Western counterpart.

Jessica Tsui-yan Li, Ph.D. (2002), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ph.D. (2007), University of Toronto, is Associate Professor of Chinese literature and culture at York University. She has published journal articles, book chapters, translations, special issues, and an edited volume on modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture, Chinese Canadian literature, and Comparative Literature.