| Sumario: | This paper understands the exportation of book translations across borders as embedded in the uneven power relations between languages and nation-states. It uses actor-network theory (ANT) as an analytical tool to explore the actors involved in bringing a Chinese contemporary children's novel – Bronze and Sunflower (by Cao Wenxuan) – to Anglo-American markets, and how they interacted to facilitate its foreign publication. As presented by this case, the book's transnational travelling can be understood as forming an actor-network, in which various human (such as rights managers, sub-agents and translators) and non-human actors (such as French language and subsidies) are involved and work together. Due to the dominance of English in the international market of book translations, this actor-network which enable a book's transnational transfer expanded after its publication in Anglo-American markets, and the English language itself turned to be a vital non-human actor who facilitated its continuing transfer.
|
|---|