Prof. CHAN Tak Hung, Leo

Biographical Note

Leo Tak-hung CHAN was Head of the Translation Department at Lingnan University (HK) for 10 years. He was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan (1991-92); Visiting Professor at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan (2014); Visiting Honorary Professor at Fudan University (2017); 29th CETRA Chair Professor of Translation at KU Leuven, Belgium (2017); and Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellow (HK Research Grants Council) (2018); and Junwu Distinguished Professor at Guangxi University, China (2020-23).

Professor Chan’s scholarly monographs include: Western Theory in East Asian Contexts: Translation and Transtextual Rewriting (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), Translation in the Post-Babelian Era (in Chinese; Bookman Publishers, 2020), Translation, Adaptation, and Reader Reception (in Chinese; Tsinghua University Press, 2020), Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Prose Fiction in Chinese: Novel Encounters (St. Jerome Publishing, 2010), Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates (John Benjamins, 2004), and The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts: Ji Yun and Eighteenth-century Literati Storytelling (University of Hawaii Press, 1998). He has edited/co-edited the following: History Retold: Premodern Texts in Western Translation (Brill, 2022), Confluences: Translation Research in Chinese and Asian Contexts (HKTS, 2011), Transformations: Translation Research in China (in Chinese; HKTS, 2011), One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature (Rodopi Editions, 2003), and Masterpieces in Western Translation Theory (in Chinese; City University of HK Press, 2000).

His articles have appeared in major journals, among them Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Comparative Literature Studies, TTR, Asian Folklore Studies, Target, META, Babel, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Translation Studies, Perspectives, Translation and Interpreting, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, and The Translator. He has published, in Chinese, three annotated bibliographies on Chinese translations of twentieth-century English fiction, drama, and poetry.

Professor Chan is the former President of the Hong Kong Translation Society (2010-2018) and currently its President Emeritus; former Chief Editor of Translation Quarterly (2004-2018) and currently its Honorary Chief Editor; and Founding Editor of the Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese (renamed recently as Prism). He was also an Executive Committee Member of the Taiwanese Association of Translators, a Member of the IATIS Regional Workshops Committee, an Advisory Member of the Committee for the Translation of the Five Classics (a Confucius Institute project), and a Founding Member/Director of Research and Publication, Association of Asian Translation Industries (ASEAN plus three). His other former capacities include: Executive Council Member of the Translators' Association of China, Member of the FIT Translation Standards Committee, Chief Moderator of the UK Institute of Linguists’ FDEC (Translation) Examinations, and First Vice-President of the Asian Studies Association of Hong Kong.

He is the Editor of the book series “Approaches to Translation Studies” (E.J. Brill; Netherlands) and Editorial Board Member of several monograph series from Bloomsbury Academic (USA), Sindéresis (Spain), University of Leuven Press (Belgium), Brill (Netherlands), and Hunan People’s Publishing House (PRC). Over the years, he has published on translation topics related to four languages (Chinese, English, Japanese and French) and four areas (reception issues in translation; adaptation studies; translation and global English; and Sino-Japanese translation). Since 2023, he has contributed to two Routledge handbooks (on Translation and Children's Literature and Media.

Books

1. History Retold: Premodern Chinese Texts in Western Translation. Co-edited with Cai Zongqi. Amsterdam: Brill Publishers, 2022. Series: Chinese Texts in the World, Vol. 2. 307 pages.
2. Western Theory in East Asian Contexts: Translation and Transtextual Rewriting. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Series: Literatures, Cultures, Translation, Vol.7. 233 pages.
3. Translation, Rewriting, and Reader Reception 翻譯、改編與讀者接受 (in Chinese). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2020. 226 pages.
4. Translation in the Post-Babelian Era: Global English and the Theoretical Turn 後巴別塔時代的翻譯：全球英語與理論轉向 (in Chinese). Taipei: Bookman Publishers, 2020. 248 pages.

Journal Articles

1. “Limits of Retranslation: The First Chinese Translation of The Tale of Genji and Its Successors” (co-authored with Ni Jindan), Translation Studies (forthcoming in 2025).
2. “Canonizing Arthur Waley, Rewriting Murasaki Shikibu: Two Back-translations of The Tale of Genji” (co-authored with Ni Jindan), Target: International Journal of Translation Studies (forthcoming in 2025).
3. “Transculturation in East Asia: Literary and Media Adaptations, Past and Present,” Asia-Pacific Journal of Translation and Intercultural Communication 11.1(2024): 4-18.
4. “Archaism, ‘Elegant Paraphrase,’ and the Chinese Translation of Three Modern Japanese Novels” (co-authored with Ni Jindan), Comparative Literature Studies (winter 2023): 647-672.
5. “Historical and Empirical Approaches to Studying the ‘Real’ Reader of Translations,” Asia-Pacific Journal of Translation and Intercultural Communication 9.2 (2022): 117-133.

Book Chapters

1. “Knowledges” (co-authored with Denise Merkle), in A Cultural History of Translation in the Modern and Contemporary World, edited by Yves Gambier and Judy Wakabayashi (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025).
2. “Young Readers, Young Translators: Harry Potter Fan Translation Projects in China,” in The Routledge Handbook on Translation and Children's Literature and Media, edited by Michal Borodo and Jorge Diaz-Cintas (New York: Routledge, 2024).
3. “Translatability and the Politics of Multilingualism: The Discourse on Chinese-Manchu Translation in the Eighteenth Century” (co-authored with Deng Ke), in The Routledge Handbook on East Asian Translation, edited by edited by Ruselle Meade, Claire Shih and Kyung Hye Kim (New York: Rutledge, 2024), pp.50-64.
4. ‘The Chinese Translation Tradition,” in Encyclopedia of Translation and Interpreting, second edition, edited by Javier Franco Aixelá and Ricardo Muñoz (AIETI/ Iberian Association of Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2023). See: https://www.aieti.eu/en/encyclopaedia/home/
5. “Reception Studies and Translation,” in The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, second edition, edited by Carol A. Chapelle (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, 2023). See: https://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781405198431
6. “Introduction: Translation Histories, Micro and Macro” (co-authored with Cai Zongqi), in History Retold: Premodern Chinese in Western Translation, edited by Leo Tak-hung Chan and Cai Zongqi (Amsterdam: Brill, 2022), pp.1-16.
7. “Coda: Histoire Croisée and the Early European Translators: Missionaries, Scholars, Aesthetes,” in History Retold: Premodern Chinese Texts in Western Translation, edited by Leo Tak-hung Chan and Cai Zongqi (Amsterdam: Brill, 2022), pp.268-282.
8. “Contemporary Scene of Translation in China,” in A World Atlas of Translation, edited by Yves Gambier and Ubaldo Stecconi (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2019), pp.81-103.
9. “Imitation as Translation: From Western Theories of Parody to Japanese Postmodern Pastiches,” Contemporary Approaches to Translation Theory and Practice, edited by Roberto A. Valdeón (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp.34-46.
10. “Young Readers, Young Translators: Harry Potter Fan Translation Projects in China,” in The Routledge Handbook on Translation and Children's Literature and Media, edited by Michal Borodo and Jorge Diaz-Cintas (New York: Routledge, 2024).
11. “Translatability and the Politics of Multilingualism: The Discourse on Chinese-Manchu Translation in the Eighteenth Century” (co-authored with Deng Ke), in The Routledge Handbook on East Asian Translation, edited by Ruselle Meade, Claire Shih and Kyung Hye Kim (New York: Rutledge, 2024), pp.50-64.
12. ‘The Chinese Translation Tradition,” in Encyclopedia of Translation and Interpreting, second edition, edited by Javier Franco Aixelá and Ricardo Muñoz (AIETI/ Iberian Association of Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2023). See: https://www.aieti.eu/en/encyclopaedia/home/
13. “Reception Studies and Translation,” in The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, second edition, edited by Carol A. Chapelle (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, 2023). See: https://onlinelibrary. wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781405198431
14. “Introduction: Translation Histories, Micro and Macro” (co-authored with Cai Zongqi), in History Retold: Premodern Chinese in Western Translation, edited by Leo Tak-hung Chan and Cai Zongqi (Amsterdam: Brill, 2022), pp.1-16.
15. “Histoire Croisée and the Early European Translators: Missionaries, Scholars, Aesthetes,” in History Retold: Premodern Chinese Texts in Western Translation, edited by Leo Tak-hung Chan and Cai Zongqi (Amsterdam: Brill, 2022), pp.268-282.