Ideological Reframing in 1973 Chinese Translations of Kobayashi Takiji

Abstract

This paper examines how the political and social context of the period influenced the Chinese translations of Kobayashi Takiji’s Numajiri Village, The Absentee Landlord, and The Crab Cannery Ship, published by the People’s Literature Publishing House in 1973. The translators’ afterwords emphasize Kobayashi’s participation in the revolutionary movement and his contribution to proletarian literature, guiding readers’ interpretation of the works. The translations largely preserve the content of the originals, while making class relations more explicit through political vocabulary. In The Crab Cannery Ship in particular, political agents are added, expressions of resistance are recast as political slogans, and sexual descriptions are omitted or mitigated. The ideological reframing found in the three translations does not amount to a complete rewriting. It selectively strengthens or weakens particular meanings while retaining the basic content of the original works.