The Translation of East Asian Science Fiction in Italy: An Essay on Chinese and Japanese Science Fiction, Anthological Practices and Publishing Strategies beyond the Anglo-American Canon

This essay examines the translation of Chinese and Japanese science fiction literature in Italian specialized collections between the 1980s and the 2000s, critically assessing cultural agencies involved, and the role of Anglo-American translations as vehicular initiatives.

Science fiction as a genre with a strong identity - with an easily recognizable and cross-mediatic repertoire of themes and tropes - is a unique vantage point from which to observe the shape and functioning of a trans-national literary production, or, in other words, of a literature which presents global characteristics shared by different linguistic and cultural traditions. Since science fiction was first published as a specific narrative sub-genre in the Anglo-American world (the starting point is usually seen as coinciding with the invention of the word scienti-fiction and later science-fiction in the late 1920s), its narrative inventions have often functioned through shared imaginaries and conventions generally accepted by authors, not only in the case of specific trends or movements, such as cyberpunk, but more in general through a collective adoption and use of ideas and images.

In the Anglo-American field of science fiction studies, there has been increasing attention in recent years to non-English traditions as well as to the idea of global or world science fiction. It is evident that translations have a critical role to play in shaping the idea we (“we” as readers, scholars, or authors) have of the trans-national science fiction production (leaving aside the thorny question of the “canon”). This is even more true when applied to the Italian science fiction readership, since science fiction as a label used by publishers arrived in Italy during the 1950s, essentially in the form of translations of British and American publications.