Denise Helly: From Yan'an to the World: The International Dissemination of Chinese Literary Theory
Currently, as the world undergoes changes unseen in a century at an accelerating pace, communication power determines influence, and the right to speak determines the initiative. Accelerating the construction of a Chinese discourse and narrative system and comprehensively improving the effectiveness of international communication is the only path to conforming to the requirements of the times, responding to challenges in international public opinion, and strengthening comprehensive national power. As the foundational document of the Communist Party of China’s theoretical system on literature and art, Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art (hereafter referred to as the Talks) garnered extensive domestic and international attention from the moment of its publication. Its cross-cultural translation, dissemination, and influence continue to this day, making a significant Chinese contribution to the development of Marxist literary and art theory. The eighty-year history of the Talks’ international dissemination provides a highly enlightening historical mirror for us to understand how to tell China’s story well, communicate China’s voice well, and promote the movement of Chinese literary theory toward the world stage.
English Translation and Dissemination of the Talks Led by the Chinese Government
Translation is the linguistic prerequisite for Chinese literary theory to go global. Regarding English translation, as early as around 1950, English editions of the Talks had already been published both at home and abroad. The first full translation was published in the Yantai-based English newspaper Chefoo News, translated by Chen Jiakang, then-secretary to Dong Biwu, and the American journalist Gertrude Graham. In the same year, another full translation by the American scholar Frederick Field, titled Problems of Art and Literature, was published in the United States, India, and other regions, subsequently undergoing two reprints.
From 1961 to 1965, the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing successively released the English translation of the first four volumes of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, with the Talks included in the third volume. This volume pooled the wisdom of first-rate scholars such as Qian Zhongshu, Jin Yuelin, and Ye Junjian. It adhered to the translation principle of "treating the source language as the goal," striving to be "completely faithful to the original text in both language and spirit." Furthermore, Mao Zedong himself personally participated in the review and proofreading, interacting directly with the translators, which fundamentally ensured the loyalty and accuracy of the translated text.
With the publication of the English Selected Works of Mao Zedong, the international dissemination of the Talks entered a new stage. Research shows that between 1950 and 1967, Mao Zedong's works, including the Talks, were translated into 65 languages with as many as 853 published editions, reaching over 150 countries and regions globally. Among these, the Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong [1] in various languages—with its unique, concise, and comprehensive expressions—spread core tenets such as the people-centered nature of literature and art, the relationship between literature and revolution, and the dual criteria for literary criticism to different classes and groups. These ranged from intellectual elites and political figures to the general public, creating a broad social foundation for subsequent academic reception and in-depth interpretation. As a classic of Chinese-to-foreign translation, the version of the Talks led by the Chinese government, by virtue of its unquestionable authority and far-reaching influence, became the most widely circulated and highly recognized version in the international community, establishing its authoritative status as the official Chinese translated edition.
Viewed historically, the translations of the 1950s and 1960s were essentially state-level practices of cultural communication, burdened with the important missions of a specific historical period. At that time, the Eastern and Western camps were in sharp confrontation; New China needed both to break through the containment and blockade of Western powers and to respond to the strong aspirations of the vast number of Asian, African, and Latin American countries to learn from China and rid themselves of colonial rule. It was precisely under this complex and intertwined international situation that the Talks became an ideological weapon and cultural bond to unite international progressive forces and jointly respond to the Cold War. Its audience was primarily oriented toward the European and American Left, Sinologists, and the revolutionary people of the Third World. Since its publication, the Talks, through its exquisite translation, has successfully disseminated the experience and theory of Chinese revolutionary literature and art to the whole world, providing important theoretical resources and ideological guidance for the world proletarian literary and art movement, and successfully promoting Chinese culture and thought onto the world stage.
English Translation and Dissemination of the Talks Led by Foreign Research Institutions
The international dissemination of the Talks did not stop at China’s official translations. Abroad, academic groups, publishing houses, and individuals organized translations and large-scale publications based on their own research goals, playing an important role in the international dissemination of the Talks. This trajectory of translation and introduction across centuries clearly presents the path of reception and interpretation of Chinese literary theory in the international academic field.
In 1952, Harvard University Press published Documentary History of Chinese Communism, compiled by Conrad Brandt, Benjamin Schwartz, and John K. Fairbank, which included selected translations of the main contents of the Talks. As the first English document to systematically introduce the Chinese communist movement, its appearance marked the beginning of the Western academic circles' bibliographical organization and research of the Chinese revolution. The editors noted that the Talks, grounded in Marxism, provided an in-depth explanation of the core issues of literary creation and criticism: standpoint, attitude, and audience, as well as the relationship between creative work and theoretical study. On this basis, they confirmed the active role of literature and art in the revolution and spoke highly of the Talks' role as a political document in the process of the Chinese revolution. Simultaneously, they emphasized the inseparable ideological lineage between the Talks and Marxism. The translation and introduction of the Talks during this period promoted Western scholarly cognition of the work and laid a documentary foundation for subsequent research.
In 1980, a standalone edition of the Talks translated by the Australian Sinologist Bonnie S. McDougall was released, published by the University of Michigan, with subsequent reprints in 1992 and 2020. This translation, with its distinct academic stance and research orientation, reflected a paradigm shift in Western research on the Talks. As an expert translator, McDougall was well-versed in modern and contemporary Chinese literature and Chinese-English translation studies. By systematically reviewing the views of representative scholars such as Cyril Birch, Howard Goldblatt, and D.W. Fokkema, she pointed out incisively that these studies were deeply influenced by ideological bias, framing the Talks as a document of political historiography while obscuring the rich literary and artistic elements it contained. She firmly believed the Talks possessed a special aesthetic connotation worthy of in-depth exploration, and her translation aimed to reveal its inherent aesthetic value. To this end, she meticulously designed every step of the translation. Given that the Talks was born during the flames of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and underwent several revisions and version changes, she used the 1943 Liberation Daily [2] version—published to commemorate the seventh anniversary of Lu Xun’s death—as the source text, while using the version included in the 1953 Chinese Selected Works of Mao Zedong as a reference, providing detailed annotations of version changes in her translation. For the translation of key concepts, she chose expressions that better highlighted aesthetic value and enhanced the reader's understanding. Although her translation reduced the original essence to a certain extent, it enhanced the commensurability between the Talks and Western literary theory, making it easier for target-language readers to truly understand the literary thought of the Talks. McDougall’s translation initiated an aesthetic turn in the translation and reception of the Talks, providing an important documentary basis for the West’s objective cognition and scholarly interpretation of Chinese literary theory.
In 1992, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University launched a major project: the systematic translation of Mao Zedong’s writings from 1912 to 1949. With Stuart R. Schram, a senior scholar in international Mao Zedong studies, as the general editor, the project spanned over 30 years, only completing the publication of all ten volumes in 2023. Upon its release, with its detailed and rich annotations and rigorous, standardized translation, it became an irreplaceable documentary resource for overseas China studies and Mao Zedong studies, hailed as the "Harvard Edition of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong." Volume 8 of this collection includes McDougall's translation of the Talks. In the "Introduction," the editors trace and analyze the historical background of the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art, not only fully affirming the significant historical contribution of the Talks to Yan’an literature and the Chinese revolution but also delving into the texture of literary aesthetics. The "Introduction" posits that Mao Zedong’s philosophical reflections on the relationship between the beauty of life and the beauty of art—and his creative insight into sublimating life into "living art"—reflect a literary outlook where poetic intuition takes precedence over rational logic. The Harvard school, represented by Schram, is a bellwether for overseas Mao Zedong studies; their commentary indicates that with the deepening of globalization, Western research on the Talks has broken through the limitations of a single perspective and achieved an organic fusion of multiple horizons, including politics, history, and aesthetics.
Revelations for the Times from the English Translation and Dissemination of the Talks
From the cave dwellings of Yan’an to the field of Western literary theory, the global resonance of the Talks and its literary theory has proved enduring. Its theoretical journey across civilizational boundaries demonstrates that the international dissemination of Chinese literary theory has never been a simple linguistic conversion, but a complex systemic project involving discourse generation, meaning reconstruction, and cultural dialogue. Looking at the translations by foreign research institutions in different periods, one can clearly see a research trajectory moving from an emphasis on politico-historical interpretation to an emphasis on the interpretation of aesthetic connotations.
Over the past 80 years, the Talks has undergone continuous interpretation and textual reconstruction across different temporal contexts, achieving a paradigmatic innovation from a Chinese revolutionary document to a discourse of world literary theory. While promoting the international dissemination of Chinese discourse, it has also facilitated understanding and dialogue regarding Chinese literary theory among people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, manifesting the vigorous vitality and value of the Sinicization of Marxism. Standing at a new historical starting point, the international dissemination of the Talks provides valuable historical revelations for the New Era to promote Chinese culture "going out" and "going in," enhancing the influence of Chinese culture and constructing a new form of human civilization, thus contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the mutual learning between civilizations.
(The author is a researcher at the School of Communication, Shenzhen University) Source: China Social Sciences Daily (April 8, 2026) Editor: Huihui