Exploring feminist translation in Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Trilogy

ABSTRACT

According to the interventionist feminist translation theory, sexist ideas found in source texts should be questioned and corrected. In some materials, signs of sexism are embodied in some unnecessary and inappropriate emphases regarding women’s gender attributes, which are almost related to certain stereotypical images. The present paper aims to explore how these problematic emphases could be treated in a feminist translation praxis applying a contrastive study of the original texts and some solutions provided by translators. To this end, the current work is designed to focus on the study of six specific cases that have been collected from Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Trilogy, a well-known Chinese science fiction novel that has sparked widespread controversy in terms of sexism. In each case, after studying the questionable original Chinese fragment, I will analyze its translations into English and Spanish to assess whether the sexism found in the source text can be attenuated or avoided after the translation process. This study will shed some light on how translators could deal with sexist emphases from a feminist approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Interventionist feminist translation
• sexism
• female gender
• Liu Cixin
• The Three-Body Trilogy

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their valuable and supportive feedback. I also feel beholden to Rafael García Pérez for his teaching and mentoring during the last years. Last but not least, I would like to thank Asier Gil Vázquez and Gabriel Doménech González for their whole-hearted supports.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The intervention by the English translators and editors in the name of feminism has been discussed (Wang 2019, 151–152). For example, after the translation into English of Hei’an senlin, Liu Cixin reveals that he, together with Martinsen, has removed almost all the signs of sexism at the request of the editor, who is a feminist (Shi 2015); Martinsen also mentions the gender issue in his translation saying that he and the editor deem that it is unfair both to the English readership and to Liu Cixin to keep the sexist elements, because they could be offensive in the cultural context of the target language, while the Chinese author does not mean to disrupt or offend the target readers (Deng and Goh 2023, 88). However, Altayó (pers. comm., December 10, 2021) strongly denies that he is a feminist translator. Alepuz Morales (pers. comm., December 26, 2021) has not heard of feminist translation; for him, the main mission of a translator is to translate the original material into other languages, modifying the text as little as possible, as long as this does not affect the stylistic naturalness of the target languages. Hence, he questions the need for a feminist translation. Nevertheless, after a close reading of Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Trilogy and its Spanish translation, we cannot deny that several fragments after the translation are less sexist than their correspondences in the original, which leads me to wonder about the general attitude of the translators in charge of the Spanish translation of this Chinese novel when faced with the signs of sexism. Altayó and Alepuz Morales have shared with me their opinions about several Chinese-Spanish translations they carried out, and these comments will be provided in the analyses of the Spanish texts they drafted.

2. In translation studies, there is confusion regarding terminology, especially the notions of strategy, procedure, and technique. In this paper, I follow Amparo Hurtado Albir’s (2019, 256–257) use of technique to refer to the specific verbal procedure, visible in a translation, whose aim is to achieve translational equivalences.

3. The original version of The Three-Body Trilogy is published in simplified Chinese. In order to align with the requirements of the present journal, this paper avoids the use of simplified Chinese by translating all the source texts into traditional Chinese.

4. After each Chinese text, an English translation is provided to facilitate non-Chinese readers’ understanding.

5. Yang Dong is a prestigious physicist mentally devastated by the instability of physics experiments orchestrated by the habitants of the planet Trisolaris, named Trisolarans, who later commits suicide.

6. Regarding this translation and its effect, Altayó (pers. comm., December 10, 2021) argues that his translation does not really “erase” the comparison between boys and girls, since to talk about “una niña,” instead of “niños,” already makes the implication of the original text explicit.

7. Cheng Xin is the second and last Swordholder, whose job is to always be ready to push the button of Dark Forest Deterrence, the key to the salvation of the earth in front of Trisolaris consisting of the threat of “a death for both” to the enemy. The Trisolarans aim at the extermination of mankind and the occupation of the earth, as their home planet is not habitable. After Trisolaris has launched the mortal attack on Earth, she decides not to activate the defense system. This decision at that time means human beings have lost the interstellar war.

8. Regarding the lack of fidelity, Alepuz Morales (pers. comm., December 26, 2021) says he chooses such a translation, less literal, simply because it sounds more natural to Spanish readers, while the Chinese text does not seem controversial to him. It seems that, at least according to the same translator, it is not appropriate to put a sentence highlighting the inability of women in his translation. It is possible that Alepuz Morales feels some discomfort when approaching the original text, although in no case does he interpret it from a feminist perspective. As a consequence, he unconsciously avoids the sexism conveyed by the source material, and the result is precisely what feminist translation requires before non-feminist texts.

9. According to Alepuz Morales (pers. comm., December 26, 2021), this translation could be an error.

10. Many people, placing the last hope of salvation in transmission of technologies by Trisolaris, lean toward the view that it is a potential friend, rather than an adversary, who will help the earth to survive. For them, the Trisolarans will consider Cheng Xin’s not activating the Dark Forest Deterrence against Trisolaris as a gesture of philanthropy. Her “merits” and “feats,” therefore, make her a saint.

Additional information

Funding

This work is part of the research project “Study of the translation and dissemination of Mo Yan’s works and his film adaptations in Spain from the perspective of cross-cultural empathy,” supported by Science Foundation of Beijing Language and Culture University (supported by “the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities”) [Approval number: 22YBB35]. The text published here is a reworking of one of the chapters of the PhD thesis “Estudio contrastivo de la Trilogía de los Tres Cuerpos de Liu Cixin y su versión en castellano desde el punto de vista de la traducción feminista,” which was carried out with the help of the scholarship provided by China Scholarship Council.

Notes on contributors

Ying Tan

Ying Tan, PhD in Humanities from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Her PhD thesis, entitled “Estudio contrastivo de la Trilogía de los Tres Cuerpos de Liu Cixin y su versión en castellano desde el punto de vista de la traducción feminista” and defended in 2022, was funded by China Scholarship Council. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Beijing Language and Culture University. Her lines of research focus on literary translation, feminist translation, empathy studies, etc.