Constructing the literary translator as a brand

Abstract

Recent attention to the human aspects of translation and translators (e.g., Pym 2009; Kaindl et al. 2021) has resulted in a possible “human turn” (Bergantino 2022, 7) in translation studies, which brings new questions and avenues for researchers working in the subdomain of translator studies. Against this backdrop, this article first constructs the concept of ‘the translator’s brand’ for investigating the evolution of literary translators into prominent status. It then outlines a three-level framework of brand-building to analyse the personal development of individual literary translators. Combining the transferrable points from the brand-related literature with the Bourdieusian sociology of cultural production, it argues that the formation of a literary translator’s brand can be analysed from intra-field (brand input), inter-field (brand investment) and inter-cultural (brand reception) levels. Lastly, the application of this methodological framework is demonstrated in a case study of a prominent Chinese-English literary translator in science fiction, Ken Liu, in the twenty-first century.