Narrative Reconstruction in the Spanish Translation of Old Stories Retoldby Laureano Ramírez: A Case Study of Mending Heaven

The Spanish sinologist Laureano Ramírez successfully reconstructs a vibrant narrative world in his translation of Old Stories Retold, demonstrating exceptional cross-cultural retelling abilities. Focusing on his translation of the first story Mending Heaven, this study tries to explore the translator’s art of retelling via an analysis of the phenomenon of narrative reconstruction in translation within the theoretical model of narrative criticism. It’s revealed that the translator includes original legends in the appendix, creating an intertextual macro-narrative structure that contrasts with the main story, while adjusting the micro-narrative progression by altering the paragraph segmentation of the original story. His reconstruction of the narrative space creatively reproduces the artistic effects of the original text. His translation also causes some change in the narrative viewpoint and the image of Nüwa, which exposes an ideological difference between the implied author/translator and the implied author of the original works.