The Metamorphosis of the Novel Moment in Peking in Japan, Taiwan, and China

This article focuses on the migration of Lin Yutang’s most-read novel, Moment in Peking (1939), across linguistic, geographic, and media boundaries in East Asia from the 1940s to recent times. It aims to reveal how this novel, originally composed in English and published in the US during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, is translated, adapted, presented, and situated in different literary, cultural and ideological contexts in Japan, Taiwan and Mainland China. Drawing on the principles of Linda Hutcheon’s theory of adaptation and the Manipulation School’s literary translation studies, my analysis highlights the agency of translators, adaptors and publishers in literary production conditioned by the evolving social, historical and political circumstances. The research contends that the metamorphosis of Moment in Peking embodies a literary power game directly linked to shifts in power dynamics between the three entities. At the cultural level, it provides insights into the intricate interplay of three distinct cultural imageries—competing, conflicting or assimilating within a relational framework.