The Translator’s Collaboration with the Writer and the Publisher: A Case Study on Nicky Harman’s Translation of Jia Pingwa’s Novel Happy Dreams

This paper examines the translator’s collaboration with the writer and the publisher through a case-study of the translation of Jia Pingwa’s 賈平凹 novel Happy Dreams (高興) by Nicky Harman, a renowned British translator of contemporary Chinese literature. Jia Pingwa is one of the most prominent contemporary Chinese writers whose novel, Happy Dreams, depicts the lives of migrant workers in Xi’an with the use of many expressions in Shaanxi dialect. These expressions pose a great challenge for translation, as they are often obscure or unfamiliar even to some native Chinese speakers. This paper explores how Nicky Harman collaborated with Jia Pingwa during the translation process and how she resolved the linguistic and cultural difficulties presented by the dialect. The paper also investigates the choice of using American English in the translation, despite Nicky Harman being a British translator. This decision was influenced by the American publisher, AmazonCrossing, which aimed to reach a wide global audience. With detailed analysis of first-hand research materials, such as interviews and correspondences, the paper provides insights into the phenomenon of collaborative translation, a topic which has gained increasing attention from scholars in the field of translation studies.