Moment in Peking and Its Chinese Translation: the Foreign Language Creation and Its Chinese Back Translation

This paper discussed the writing motive and narrative features of Lin Yutang's Moment in Peking,a modern English novel with the theme of anti-Japanese War aiming to promote Chinese culture,based on the novel's dedication and theme,volume division and Taoist quotation,as well as chapter and title arrangement.It then analyzed the reflections in its three Chinese versions,with a special attention to Zhang Zhenyu's translation strategy of returning to the old "Zhanghui Style".The paper probed into the novel's duality of west form and Chinese content and accordingly its Chinese back translation in terms of its status in the modern history of Chinese literature translation.Such new terms as foreign language creation,Chinese /rootless back translation,and original text restoration are employed for an effective explanation of this special case as well as of similar literary works about Chinese culture written in a foreign language and translated into Chinese again.