How <i>The Three-Body Trilogy</i> Were Translated: Perspectives on the Political and Literary Fields

The Three-Body Trilogy, published in English, is arguably the best-selling Chinese literature, with the most attention garnered from the English-language media. Literature is viewed as a symbolic product, as a nation’s literary works are naturally seen as a literary prestige or reserving the status of a sacred classic. While some literary fields are considered dominant, others ending up in being dominated. Thus, the conflict between the dominant and dominated in the field of literature serves as the field’s fundamental driving force. Such competition may derive from political influence, financial gain, social standing, or even the cultural standing of the field the participants occupy. By adopting the keyword “ The Three-Body Trilogy,” this study searched the BCC and NOW corpora. It was found that the Classic China International Publishing Project, Silk Road Literary Project, Ken Liu, Tor Books all provided varying degrees of support for the translation and dissemination of The Three-Body Trilogy, which jointly form the field and translation context for it to move from the dominated literary field to the dominant literary field.