Prä-übersetzerische Entdeckung: Benjamin und der westliche Marxismus (xima)

Abstract

As the first translated work of Benjamin’s writings in monographic form, his Baudelaire book was initially translated into Chinese in 1989. Yet, this translation did not mark the beginning of the Chinese reception of Benjamin. A fair number of accounts on Benjamin’s person and his thinking had already been published in academic journals by the time the translation was published. This chapter investigates the pre-translational discovery of Benjamin. It aims to explore the political dimension of the discovery by focusing on the questions of how Benjamin was discovered, who discovered him, for whom he was discovered, and under which historical and socio-political circumstances he was discovered.