Abstract
This paper selects Futabatei Shimei’s 『猶太人の浮世』, the first Japanese translation of Russian writer Maxim Gorky (ГÓРЬКИЙ Максим)’s short story Каин и Артем (Cain and Artyem) , and Wu Tao’s 『憂患余生』, a Chinese retranslation based on the Japanese version. It attempts to compare the different translation strategies they apply when choosing Kanji characters to express a foreign concept originally expressed in alphabetic words. It concludes that Futabatei Shimei chooses words purposefully to express his comprehensive understanding of the original work. On the other hand, Wu Tao, Futabatei’s Chinese translator only has a vague understanding towards this Jewish story conveyed by Japanese texts. So he mainly chose words that are either the same or close to the Kanji words in Japanese text, not considering much about the integrity or the aesthetic needs of the story as a whole.
