2025-09-182025-09-18http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11861/25570This project will investigate the translation of Third World literature in communist periodicals during the Cold War era in Hong Kong. The research period is set to be from 1948 to 1969 and will cover four periodicals under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the period, including two newspapers, Wen Wei Po (文匯報) and Ta Kung Pao (大公報), and two magazines, Literature Century (文藝世紀, 1957–1969) and Hai Guang Literature (海光文藝, 1966–67). It will be the first of its kind to apprehend the complete scenario of translations in communist periodicals in Hong Kong. It will utilize methodologies of periodical studies, translation studies, world literature studies, as well as knowledge of Hong Kong history and literature to explore the global outlook of communist periodicals and the characteristics of their translation. It aims to recognize their contribution to Hong Kong literature and their production of world literature, while also focusing on the agency of the Hong Kong leftists.<br> The project will examine how Hong Kong communist periodicals turned to Third World literature in the 1960s. It will establish the differences in translation direction between the 1950s and 1960s. “Third Worldism” arose after the Bandung Conference in 1955, where literary translations among Third World countries were initiated globally. China caught on to this trend and focused on Third World literature in the 1960s. This project will investigate if Hong Kong communist periodicals followed this trend, and if so, how it manifested. The focus will be on whether there were similarities and differences in the translation practices between the communist periodicals in Hong Kong, Chinese Mainland, and the transnational translation magazines of Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau (AAWB) and Afro-Asian Writers Association (AAWA), all of which devoted much effort to translating the Third World in the decolonizing postwar world. It will also analyze how Hong Kong communist periodicals constructed a leftist repertoire of world literature as opposed to the right-wing, US-funded literary translation that consisted primarily of Anglo-American and European works. Case studies of Asian and Latin American literature will be identified to explore how the translation manifested Hong Kong’s connection within the region from the cultural network of communism. The “South-South” connection between Hong Kong and the Third World will demonstrate how “minor world literature” was circulated in the Sinophone region, and also contest to Hong Kong’s value as a case study in rising world literature studies.