Professor publishes research of Martial Law-era writings

By Yang Yuan-ting and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

A National Taiwan Normal University professor has published the results of five years of research into Martial Law-era translations of international works whose authorship was wrongly attributed due to their origins in China, while some famous works contained political additions.

Sharon Lai (賴慈芸) said her book, The Office of Translation Detective Work (翻譯偵探事務所), restores the “true face” of 50 translated works whose authors were not recognized in Taiwan due to a prohibition of books from China at the time they were published.

Following the retreat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to Taiwan in 1949 there was a shortage of academics capable of translating works from foreign languages into Chinese, Lai said, adding that publishers looked to China, where many translated works were readily available.

To get these works past censors, publishers often listed the writers under pseudonyms such as Wu Ming-shih (吳明實), a homophonic play on the Chinese expression for “anonymous” (無名氏).

“The translations were in such high demand that in 1953 the government changed the regulations allowing [books from China if the] names of authors and translators were altered,” Lai said.

The change in regulations resulted in a chaotic situation in which it became impossible to ascertain who translated what works, Lai said, adding that hundreds of academic articles from the period contain inaccuracies due to incorrect attribution.

It even became difficult to trace the origins of the original foreign-language works, Lai said.

Lai said she uncovered the identities of the translators by looking at the timeline of examples the writers provided, as well as writing styles.

“Every book provided some clues for me to work with,” Lai said.

In the process of her research Lai made numerous trips to libraries in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, where she pored over collections of modern translations. Her work uncovered 1,500 examples of recopied translations and 400 pseudonyms.

Lai said she also uncovered many examples of alterations or additions made to translations used in Taiwan, with political rhetoric injected into the text.

Lai cited a 1956 translation of the Greek collection Aesop’s Fables in which the tale of the donkey and the grasshopper contained the added lines: “The communists are like the grasshopper who tricks the donkey. Only those who are as foolish as the donkey will believe the communists.”

Similarly a rendition of the book Streams in the Desert (荒漠甘泉) contained the added line: “Forge ahead to recapture the rivers and mountains” of China.