Translating Chinese identity crisis in and beyond jianghu: A case study of Legends of the Condor Heroes

With its own institutional and cultural heterogeneity, the Chinese identity crisis has long been regarded as a major motif in wuxia novels but received little attention from translation scholars in its journey to the Anglophone world. This paper examines the challenges of translating identity-related concepts in wuxia and identifies hybridity theory as a framework for bridging the labyrinthine Chinese identity and Western notion of identity crisis. Focusing on a qualitative descriptive case study of the English translation of Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan (射雕英雄传), a wuxia novel by Jin Yong, this study analyses how translation strategies manage identity crisis across two levels: within and beyond jianghu. Findings reveal that while maintaining the pace and excitement of the original text, the translators address identity crisis by focalizing protagonists’ flow state, distinguishing types of femininity and downplaying Han chauvinism to navigate national, gender and ethnic identity issues. They also manage to render the emotional resonances experienced by the Chinese in diaspora beyond the jianghu context through geographical imaginary. All these approaches have helped promote the development of plotting and propel this novel to a wider readership.