Ba Wang Bie Ji aka Farewell My Concubine

Introduction

My dissertation is a translation and commentary of a Chinese novel with homosexual and cultural elements. By drawing readers’ attention to the foreign elements in source text (ST) and giving a realistic depiction of Chinese homosexuals in source context, I intend to introduce Chinese culture to readers and allow them to have a glimpse about the life of homosexuals in China to raise their understandings towards homosexual issues. Therefore, the focus of my translation will be the representation of a homosexual character and the depiction of Chinese culture in the book.

I will be translating from a gender perspective. Lots of work has been made in discussing the role of gender in translation. However, most researchers focus on feminist translation and there are few studies about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) and their translations. Furthermore, due to the media censorship of materials containing homosexual content in China, support and information in this field are scarce and it posts difficulties for further research. I hope that despite introducing foreign culture and increasing knowledge and gender-awareness of readers, my dissertation can also contribute useful data to homosexual study and translation, thereby spur further research in this area.

Material & Scope

The ST I have selected is a Chinese novel called “Ba Wang Bie Ji” (Li, 1992), also known as Farewell My Concubine, written by a Hong Kong novelist Li Bi-Hua. The story presents the lives of two performers of Peking Opera and their complicated relationship at a time of political upheaval in China. The title of the book was borrowed from a Peking Opera play based on the historical tale where Hegemon-King Xiang Yu asked his favorite concubine...

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Li, B. 1992. Ba wang bie ji. [BT:霸王別姬] Taipei: Crown Publishers.

Li, B. and Lingenfelter, A. 1993. Farewell to my concubine. New York: Morrow.

Liu, D. and Lu, G. 2005. Research in Chinese homosexuals. [BT: 中國同性戀研究] Beijing: China Society Press.

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