Self-translation, Rewriting, and Translingual Address: Li Kotomi’s Solo Dance

Abstract

Drawing on Susan Bassnett’s critique of ‘self-translation,’ whereby the phenomenon is understood according to a binary source-target logic and the related notion of originality, this article examines three versions of a Li Kotomi novel: the Japanese original Hitorimai (独り舞, 2018), the Chinese self-translation Du Wu (獨舞, 2019), and Arthur Reiji Morris’s English translation Solo Dance (2022). Our focus is on how Li’s practice of self-translation and translanguaging muddles traditional boundaries between culture and language, and challenges binary notions of translation. Rather than viewing self-translation through source-target/original-translation binaries, we examine Hitorimai and Du Wu as a translingual, transcultural dialogue between Li (as author and translator) and her readers in a space of “translingual address” (Robinson). Furthermore, we discuss queer cross-cultural representations in Morris’s English translation and argue that, together, the Japanese text and the Chinese self-translation constitute the queer original of the novel.