Abstract:
Han Song is one of the most unconventional science fiction writers in contemporary China. Despite the dark tone of a great part of his work, he is a sustainer of the unique power of science fiction to think about the past, reflect present reality and imagine possible futures: by designing very extreme conditions where those three periods exist together, test what will happen, and eventually being able to avoid it. Even if he is unaffiliated with any literary movement, for the experimentation he has displayed in both style and content while exploring contemporary China’s reality he has been criticized by some, and praised by many genre fans and mainstream critics, that classify him as an avantgarde writer, and some of his work as being beyond the science fiction genre. This thesis addresses the translation of Han Song’s short story Mo Ban Ditie, the first version, present only online and never published because of censorship, and includes a comparison with the second one. Only after some changes were made, it was published in 2010 as part of a novel, Ditie. The plot is about a man who witnesses the kidnapping of some passengers, carried out by aliens in glass bottles on the last subway, and his attempt to find out the truth before he himself disappears. Beyond the science fiction plot, this short story is full of subjectivity, social critique, experimentation in terms of both style and content, and rich in reference to Chinese daily life, history and culture. By interviewing the author I had the chance to have a better understanding of his work, and I was able to give an order of importance to the various elements present in the text, thus finding my translation strategy. The last part of this thesis consists of a commentary on the translation and includes an analysis of the main problems encountered during its preparation.
