He reconstruction of the horizon of expectations, in the face of which a work was created and received in the past, enables one to pose questions that the text gave an answer to, and thereby to discover how the contemporary reader could have viewed and understood the work. For over three decades, the book has regularly featured in lists of recommended reading in China for both young and adult Chinese readers, and Thoreau/ Walden-related literature produced by Chinese scholars diversifies in perspective and increases in number year by year. Most of them are still in print and some are forthcoming. The last three decades have witnessed a surge of translations of Walden in China, with no fewer than 129 versions being published in Mandarin and one in Taiwanese. The international reputation of Thoreau has been both mediated and boosted by numerous translations of his acknowledged masterpiece, Walden, into different languages.

“It seems erroneous to claim that Thoreau is too quirkily and idiosyncratically American to appeal to foreign readers or his peculiar brand of American nativism has little international appeal” (Otterberg, 2017).

An indication of Thoreau’s global appeal lies in the fact that the Thoreau Society, founded in 1941, recruits members from far beyond the borders of the United States. No longer simply regarded as an obscure disciple of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) has been labelled posthumously as “American’s greatest philosopher”, an “ecological writer”, a “romantic naturalist” and “one of the few American writers of the nineteenth century who deserve the appellation ‘great’” (Harding, 1995, p. One of the most striking phenomena of American literary history has been the gradual growth of Thoreau’s reputation, both domestically and internationally (Jiang et al., 2007, p. In some respects, the rising popularity of Thoreau in China mirrors his increasing popularity in the United States however, the evolving reception of his work by translators, literary scholars and writers in China may diverge in detail from his critical and popular reception in his native country. Most recently, Thoreau has been transformed into a multifaceted figure in China, one who has enjoyed a great influence upon Chinese eco-writers. Later, this writing was regarded as a product of the complex integration of Chinese and American thinking in the eyes of Chinese literary scholars. Thoreau was initially understood by his Chinese translators as a foreign thinker whose work endorses traditional Chinese values such as the celebration of Nature and Tianrenheyi 天人合- (or “harmony between Nature and man”), and Walden was valued mainly for its perceived alignment with a “native” component in Chinese philosophy and a multifaceted figure in China. Adopting a descriptive and diachronic approach, this article surveys the different Chinese versions of Walden, the studies by Chinese scholars on Thoreau/ Walden, as well as eco-writings inspired by Thoreau/ Walden in China, with the purpose of investigating the translation and reception of Thoreau in China from three perspectives: those of translators, literary scholars and writers. The last three decades have witnessed a growing number of Chinese versions of Walden, together with an upsurge of interest in this classic American book. Rathnam taught at Davidson from 2016-2017.First published in 1854, Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, has been translated into many languages. He joined fellow Davidsonian Lincoln Rathnam ’07, a DKU political science faculty member who completed his doctorate in 2018.

Ahrensdorf joined the faculty at DKU in 2019 to teach political philosophy and politics and literature. Pickus, who was also dean of curriculum and faculty development at DKU, tapped Ahrensdorf, along with John Wertheimer of the Davidson History Department, to help build the faculty that would launch an undergraduate degree program in the fall of 2018. In February 2017, Ahrensdorf was invited by Duke University Associate Provost Noah Pickus to help recruit and evaluate applicants for tenure track jobs at Duke Kunshan University (DKU), a Sino-American joint venture institution. The translations further deepen Ahrensdorf’s already significant relationship to China. This latest translation is the eighth work by Ahrensdorf published in Chinese, including an interview he gave in 2020 in Political Thoughts Review, which is sponsored by the School of Political Science and Public Administration, East China University of Political Science and Law.

Renmin trainslation