The Novel Fortress Besieged: A Translator's Challenge

Qian Zhongshu's novel Fortress Besieged (Wei cheng), employing a wide variety of literary devices and abounding in cultural references, is a piece of literature exceptionally difficult to translate. This thesis identifies the main categories of problems the translator will encounter during its translation. Taking the English, French and Spanish versions of the novel as its ground, the thesis investigates what the paths are that the translator chooses when translating literary works culturally remote from the target language reader. The author starts out with the theories of Jiří Levý and approaches translation problems from a functional standpoint. He finds out, however, that a successful translation requires an effort not only from the translator but equally from the reader