earticle

영어

This paper examines literary translingualism in Chinese American writer Ha Jin’s A Free Life. Literary translingualism is the critical concept Steven G. Kellman uses and promotes to analyze the characteristics of the phenomenon of creative writers who choose to write in their adopted languages rather than their native or first languages. Multiple reasons, including political and economic necessity, ambition as writers, alienation as an aesthetic condition, cause creative writers to undertake literary translingualism. The combination of the above-mentioned reasons prompts Jin to pursue literary translingualism. In A Free Life, Jin deals with the topic of literary translingualism in close relation to his own personal struggle with the same issue through the main character Nan Wu’s life of literary pursuit in the United States. This paper specifically focuses on the relationship between the pursuit of literary translingualism and its influence on the process of one’s creativity. This issue is also closely related to the question of aesthetics. My analysis of aesthetics in A Free Life, particularly the growth of Wu’s aesthetic consciousness, also helps to explore some characteristics of Ha Jin’s ideas about his pursuit of literary translingualism. Examining literary translingualism in relation to the choice of language for literary pursuit, aesthetics, and creativity will assist us to explore not only the characteristics of literary translingualism in A Free Life but their significance in the life of Ha Jin’s literary pursuit, that is, how his pursuit of literary translingualism influences the formation of his identity as a translingual writer who works in between multiple languages.