Mediating Rebirth and Rural China in Howard Goldblatt's Cultural Translation of Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

This chapter examines how culture-specific items in Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (2006) are rendered in Howard Goldblatt's English translation, with attention to ecological, material, social, religious, and linguistic references. Drawing on Nida's (2007) cultural taxonomy, Aixelá's (1996) typology of strategies, and Hervey and Higgins's (1992) loss–gain framework, the study catalogs 564 items and randomly samples 12 from each of the five domains for close analysis. The evidence suggests a pragmatic balance between retention and normalization: proper nouns—such as place names, mythic figures, and political institutions—are largely preserved, while routine or culturally opaque expressions are often generalized to aid comprehension. These choices incur lexical, cultural, stylistic, and ideological losses, yet they also yield gains through explicitation, compensation, and creative reformulation. Goldblatt thus emerges as a cultural mediator who negotiates fidelity and readability, shaping the novel's international reception.