Abstract: The New Writing series, edited by the twentieth-century British publisher John Lehmann, served not only as an intersection of late modernism and left-wing literature but also as a crucial site where Chinese wartime literature entered the English-speaking world and participated in the construction of world anti-fascist discourse. From the perspective of variation theory in comparative literature, Lehmann’s introduction of Chinese texts was not a mere transposition but a complex cross-cultural editorial negotiation. Situated in the European context following the setbacks of the Spanish Civil War, Lehmann employed a left-wing internationalist editorial gaze. Through paratext rhetoric and specific translation strategies, he subjected the heterogeneous Chinese experience to creative variation. This process reconstructed Chinese narratives, originally grounded in national salvation, into an organic component of the world anti-fascist discourse. Although this cross-lingual misreading and rewriting obscured the complexity of indigenous Chinese politics to some extent, it successfully generated a discourse of a “resistance community” with global significance, providing a unique historical paradigm for Chinese literature’s intervention in the landscape of world literature.

Key words: John Lehmann, New Writing series, variation theory, editorial gaze, wartime China

摘要： 20世纪英国出版家约翰·莱曼主编的《新作品》系列期刊,不仅是晚期现代主义与左翼文学的交汇点,更是中国抗战文学进入英语世界并参与世界反法西斯话语建构的关键场域。在比较文学变异学视域下,莱曼对中国文本的引介并非简单搬运,而是一场复杂的跨文化编辑博弈。在西班牙内战受挫后的欧洲语境中,莱曼运用左翼国际主义的编辑凝视,通过副文本修辞和翻译策略等,对异质的中国经验进行了创造性变异,将原本基于民族救亡的中国叙事,重构为世界反法西斯话语的有机组成部分。这种跨语际的误读与重写虽部分遮蔽了中国本土政治的复杂性,却成功生成了具有世界性意义的抵抗共同体话语,为中国文学介入世界文学版图提供了独特的历史范本。

关键词: 约翰·莱曼, 《新作品》系列期刊, 变异学, 编辑凝视, 战争中国