Translation as Method

Taking Lu Xun's work as its starting point, this essay examines translation as a methodology for negotiating not between different languages or dialects but rather between different voices. To the extent that some fiction attempts to manifest the voices of socially marginalized figures, this translational approach offers a way of examining the possibilities and limits of this sort of negotiation. By extension, a similar translational framework may also be used to understand the attempts by critics to assess fiction's own attempts to render these marginalized voices.