Dung Kai-cheung’s Atlas in translation

Abstract

This article examines issues of translation in Dung Kai-cheung’s 董啟章 novel Dituji: Yige xiangxiang de chengshi de kaoguxue 地圖集：一個想像的城市的考古學 (Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City). In the first instance, it provides structural analyses of the constraints shaping the translation of the writer’s work from Chinese to English. It moves on to comment on the imbrication of Hong Kong’s history of translation in the puns and other word games, as well as in the narrative thread. Lastly, it compares different partial English translations of significant passages to (re-)map the linguistic and cultural transfer of this major work of contemporary Hong Kong literature.