Western Literature in China and the Translation of a Nation

"Shouhua Qi's new book is one of the most historically comprehensive and approachable in a body of work that prioritizes the study of translation of foreign texts in Chinese modernity and nation-building. It surveys episodes of translation and translation culture in China from the late 1800s to the present day and offers a rich body of resources for scholarship on this emergent field (of late represented by the works of Ning Wang, Luo Xuanmin, and He Yuanjian). Qi's history of the cultural and sociopolitical work of translation in China also contains within it a history of the remarkable centralization of translation in China that took place from 1880 to 1970, and the process of decentralizing translation after the Cultural Revolution; thus, it represents a truly systematic treatment of modern Chinese history through its translation movements. This book achieves a remarkable feat in accounting for and differentiating between different camps of translators, translation camps and periodicals, thought campaigns and institutional regimes of translation." - The Journal of Asian Studies