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Gained in Translation

This is a tricky sort of plagiarism charge.

The allegation [is] that [the novel] Gold Mountain Blues, written in Chinese [and in the process of being translated into English and published in Canada], plagiarizes the works of well-known Chinese Canadian authors who write in English, including Denise Chong, Wayson Choy, Sky Lee and Paul Yee.

… The key blogger leading the attacks, known as “Changjiang,” and identified on his site as Robert Luo, alleges that Zhang [Ling] has been playing the margins: taking advantage of the fact that Canadian Chinese writers cannot read Chinese, and Chinese readers and critics do not understand English.

The plagiarism obviously can’t involve verbatim lifting.

[The] website accuses Zhang of borrowing the key character of [Denise] Chong’s book — her grandmother May-ying, the hard-drinking, smoking, gambling “concubine” of the title — then fashioning it into a character in Gold Mountain Blues. … [Another book] opens with a powerful narrative of a male Chinese immigrant who finds himself in peril in the western Canadian wilds of the 19th Century, is rescued and brought back to a native camp, falls in love with a native woman, lives with her, and then abandons her to marry a Chinese wife. Later, he learns that his abandoned lover bore him a son. A very similar set of circumstances occurs to a Chinese man in Gold Mountain Blues.

Penguin has held up publication until the controversy is resolved.

Margaret Soltan, February 3, 2011 2:07AM
Posted in: plagiarism

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3 Responses to “Gained in Translation”

  1. jim Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 8:39AM

    It’s not plagiarism. It’s copyright infringement: the creation of a derived work. It’s the same principle that prevents me from writing an eighth Harry Potter book and making millions.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 9:23AM

    jim: Thanks for that correction.

  3. Çelik Kapı Says:
    February 3rd, 2011 at 9:43AM

    Nice correction. I agree.

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