ABSTRACT

Deborah Smith’s English translation of the Korean author Han Kang’s novel, The Vegetarian (London: Portobello) won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016. However, her creative approach has been highly controversial in South Korea (where literal translation is dominant) by provoking a heated discussion on its mistranslations. Against many critics’ disapproval, I argue that Smith’s translation is a good example of feminist translation: while she retains and reinforces the feminist elements of the Korean source text, she intervenes in the text from a feminist perspective when it more clearly registers patriarchal Korean society. She achieves her feminist ambitions through addition and omission in her feminist treatment of the main characters. Two husbands are described as more patriarchal while the solidarity between two sisters are strengthened with In-hye becoming more independent and an active owner of her own life in the target text. Such a feminist translation is significant: Smith resists the oppressive patriarchal logic at the heart of translation’s myth of fidelity like the radical politics of the heroine’s vegetarianism.

摘要

黛博拉·史密斯 (Deborah Smith) 对韩国作家韩康的小说《素食者》的英文翻译（伦敦：Portobello）在 2016 年获得了布克国际奖。然而，她的创作方法在韩国（直译占主导地位）引起了激烈的争论，引发了对其误译的热烈讨论。面对许多批评家的反对，我认为史密斯的翻译是女权主义翻译的一个很好的例子：虽然她保留并加强了韩国原文的女权主义元素，但当它更清楚地记录韩国父权社会时，她从女权主义的角度介入文本. 她通过对主要人物的女权主义处理中的增减来实现她的女权主义抱负。在目标文本中，两个丈夫被描述为更加重男轻女，而随着仁惠变得更加独立和积极拥有自己的生活，两个姐妹之间的团结得到了加强。这样的女权主义翻译意义重大：史密斯抵制了作为女主人公素食主义的激进政治等翻译的忠诚神话核心的压迫性父权逻辑。