Awkward Betweenness and Reluctant Metamorphosis: Eileen Chang’s Self-Translation

This article studies Eileen Chang’s (1920-1995)’s self-translation as a cultural mediation between two worlds. Different from the previous studies which either focus mainly on a single work or interpret from the perspective of Sinophone studies, this article presents a relatively inclusive view of Chang’s self-translation by contrasting her practices in the 1940s with that of the post-1950s, examining the changing Skopos that dictates how she conducted and metamorphosized her self-translations and the paradoxical relationship between her writings and her self-translations. In today’s heterotopic world where cultures converge, intersect, and interact in a multitude of ways and places, Chang’s self-translation and rewriting presents less as a study of the schizophrenically divided world but more as a study of metamorphosis, transition, and hybridity across borders.