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不為人知的張愛玲
137
Eileen Chang
—
The Unknown Story:
The Rice-Sprout Song
and
the Naked Earth
under
the USIS Book Translation Program
Mei-Hsiang Wang
Institute of Sociology, National Tsing Hua University
No. 101, Section 2, Kuang-Fu Road, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan
E-mail:
mei74055@ms36.hinet.netAbstract
This essay mainly deals with the relationship between Eileen
Chang’s two novels
The Rice-Sprout Song
and
The Naked Earth
and
the United States Information Service
(
USIS
)
in Hong Kong. I argue
that these two novels were commissioned and authorized under the
USIS Book Translation Program. Moreover, they are products of anti-
communist propaganda promulgated by the U.S. Aid Literary Insti-
tution. However, their production processes and properties were
not identical under the translation program.
The Rice-Sprout Song
began as Chang’s independent writing, but was later incorporated
into the USIS Book Translation Program. On the other hand,
The
Naked Earth
was originally a writing of
Farewell to the Korea Front
which applied by the Hong Kong political commentator Hsu
Tung-Pin. This story was written in close collaboration with USIS.
Chang took over the writing project and she continued to write un-
der the same outline. Then,
The Naked Earth
was broadcast under
the China Reporting Program. Finally, I emphasize that Chang still
retained her own distinctive writing style under the U.S. Aid Literary
Institution producing, in a sense, free writing under an unfree insti-
tution.
Key Words
:
Cultural Cold War, U.S. Aid Literary Institution, China
Reporting Program, Anti-Communist Literature