While translations of Russian works played an important role in the development of modern Chinese literature, unfortunately few monographs highlight the translations' impact on Chinese readership. It is no overstatement to say that Mark Gamsa's The Chinese Translation of Russian Literature: Three Studies is the first comprehensive study in English on the reception of Russian literature in China in the early twentieth century.

The depth of the work and the range of the questions on the Chinese translation and interpretation of Russian literature deserve high praise. Working with numerous original sources in Russian, Chinese, English, German, and French, Gamsa conducts three thoughtful studies on the translated works of well-known Russian authors of the time: Boris Savinkov (1879–1925), Mikhail Artsybashev (1878–1927), and Leonid Andreev (1871–1919). The choice of these particular writers in the framework of one study, which also presents modern Russian and Chinese literary criticism, is not accidental. Born in the same generation, “all three authors responded to the challenges that politics posed to literature” (p. 3). After their success in Russia, the works of these three writers were translated into English, German, French, and Japanese, and then “arrived in China after a considerable delay, at a time when their authors were already about to be banned in their own country” (p. 12).

The translators included writers and thinkers such as Lu Xun (1881–1936) and Zheng Zhenduo (1898–1958), who, through their translations and own works, wanted to change Chinese society. Showing the complicated process of re-translating Russian works into Chinese from other languages, Gamsa examines the technique of the translations, including “the whole range of decisions that translators take in the course of their works,” and the ideology that implies “the motivation for translating, and the choice of texts by the translator” (p. 25). As Gamsa convincingly proves, the ideological approach became a crucial factor in translating the works by these three Russian authors, who in their stories described political terror, skepticism, and disappointment that reminded Chinese readers of similar problems in their own country.

The author notes that “to learn how literary works were created, transmitted and interpreted,” he employs the approach of contextual historicism “championed by Robert Hume” (p. 31). Indeed, the work is a thoughtful textual analysis based on archival research. Examining leading literary figures of the early twentieth century, Gamsa provides readers with the writers' and translators' biographical backgrounds, as well as the historical context that contributes to our understanding of literary life and activities in Russia and China in that period. The scope of research is amazing. As the author writes in the introduction, “chapters 4 and 5 use available information on the forty-two translators, of thirty-five works by Leonid Andreev rendered into Chinese from 1909 to 1950, to draw a collective portrait of the translators of Russian literature in China during the first half of the twentieth century” (p. 9). The same exhaustive care is found in the analysis of the translations of other authors' works.

In the first chapter, “Savinkov and the Technique of Translation,” Gamsa skillfully makes use of contextual historicism to recreate a vivid picture of the revolutionary time in Russia and China at the beginning of the twentieth century. Analyzing Savinkov's The Pale Horse, which recalls the assassinations of Grand Duke Sergei, governor-general of Moscow, and Viacheslav K. Von Plehve, minister of interior, Gamsa contrasts four terrorists in the novel with the author, who, as an active member of the terrorist organization Boivaia organizatsiia (Combat Organization) from 1903 to 1905, personally conspired and participated in the aforementioned murders. Juxtaposing the author's and characters' convictions and social positions, Gamsa shows that political killing for various people of that time became a justified method in the struggle for change in a backward society. In his study of Zheng Zhenduo's translation of the English translation by Zinaida Vengerova, Gamsa examines the translator's interpretation of the ideological message of the novel articulated its preface, the obstacles that the translator faced during his job, and the reception of Savinkov's novel in China.

Gamsa's solid research contributes to Chinese studies by discussing many important yet hitherto unexplored issues. The book will be a useful source of information for those who are interested not only in Russian and Chinese literary relations, but also in literary history, criticism, and comparative studies. It serves as a good example of close reading of original texts and translations, as well as the analysis of literary works in historical and social contexts. Finally, this pioneering study lays out a framework for future research on the impact of the Russian literary tradition on the formation of modern Chinese literature.