From the Paper to the Stage: a New Life for Novels? The Adaptation of Bestsellers in Contemporary China

Barbara Leonesi

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/3616

Barbara Leonesi University of Turin

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/3616

Keywords: Chinese theatre, Adaptation, Translation, Contemporary Chinese Literature, Wang Anyi, Bi Feiyu, Yu Hua, Meng Jinghui

Abstract

This paper studies the evermore widespread phenomenon of the adaptation of novels for the stage, focusing on prizewinning contemporary Chinese novels. The first part provides the theoretical approach that is adopted in the second part, where two cases studies are discussed, i.e the stage adaptation of the novel Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi and of the novel To Live by Yu Hua.

Starting from the perspective of “horizontal relations” among texts (Hutcheon 2013), the analysis of the adaptation process takes its distance from the fidelity/infidelity discourse, in order to investigate the network of echoing versions (trans-media, trans-language, etc) it is able to produce. This network is much more interesting to explore than supposed vertical hierarchies. Nevertheless, not every version is a text able to live independently from its source: the analysis shows that today's phenomenon of trans-media adaptation is fostered by a cultural industry that aims at exploiting all profits from a best-selling prizewinning novel. The role played by this industry in the adaptation process needs to be fully considered.

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Author Biography

Barbara Leonesi, University of Turin

Barbara Leonesi holds a PhD from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris), and is currently an Associate Professor in Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of Human Studies of the University of Turin, Italy. She has published several articles on the translation and reception of Italian literature in China, particularly poetry and drama, and translated various Chinese literary works into Italian – mostly contemporary novels. Her current research mainly focuses on contemporary Chinese theatre, translation theories applied to drama, and the relation between text, performance, and translation.She can be reached at: barbara.leonesi@unito.it.

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