Translating Deleuze: On the Uses of

Deleuze in a Non-Western Context

Yu-lin Lee

National Chung Hsing University

Abstract
This paper aims to explore the appropriation of Deleuzian literary theory
in the Chinese context and its potential for mapping a new global
poetics. The purpose of this treatment is thus twofold: first, it will
redefine the EastWest literary relationship, and second, it will seek a
new ethics of life, as endorsed by Deleuzes philosophy of immanence.
One finds an affinity between literature and life in Deleuzes philosophy:
in short, literature appears as the passage of life and an enterprise of
health and thus seeks new possibilities of life, which consists in the
invention of a new language and a new people. But what kind of
health may such a view provide for a non-Western individual, people,
literature and culture? This investigation further appeals to the medium
of translation. This paper argues that the act of translation functions as
a means of deterritorialisation that displays continuing variations of a
language, and through translation, Deleuzes clinical and critical aspects
of literature promote a transversal poetics that transcends the binary,
oppositional conception of EastWest and an immanent ethics of life
that overcomes the sentiment of ressentiment.
Keywords: Gilles Deleuze, literary theory,
territorialisation, ethics of life, global poetics

translation,

de-

I. The Problem and the Objective

This paper is inspired by Gregg Lamberts article On the Uses and
Abuses of Literature for Life, in which Lambert examines Deleuzes
Deleuze Studies 7.3 (2013): 319329
DOI: 10.3366/dls.2013.0114
Edinburgh University Press
www.euppublishing.com/dls

320 Yu-lin Lee

views regarding literature and its effect on life in a similar fashion to that
found in Nietzsches treatise (Lambert 2000). Lamberts investigation
is an allusion to Nietzsches famous treatise titled On the Uses and
Disadvantages of History for Life (Nietzsche 1997). In it, Nietzsche
examines various history ideas found in nineteenth-century Germany
and argues that an excess of history may do harm to life when the
pursuit of historical knowledge replaces the activities of life. Nietzsche
does not oppose the science of history per se, just the abuse of it. More
significantly, Nietzsche does not simply offer a criticism of history; he
offers an outline for a project for life. The idea of life for Nietzsche,
as Craig Lundy explains, is not reducible to the biological, but forms
an immanent principle that encompasses society and culture (Lundy
2009: 194). In his article, Lambert changes the topic from history
to literature as a response to Deleuzes final published book, Essays
Critical and Clinical (1997), and explores the idea of viable health for
life through critical and clinical use of literature, as Deleuze proposes.
Lambert examines the criteria given by Deleuzes aspects of literature
and situates them in the current social condition by asking the question,
What is minor literature today?
Although I share in Lamberts concerns, in this article my intention
is to complicate both the question and its scope by exploring the
appropriation of Deleuzes thought, literary theory in particular, in the
Chinese context as a potential for mapping the idea of global poetics
and finding a workable ethics for life. One can find an affinity between
literature and life in Deleuzes thought, but to what extent can the use
of Deleuzian literary theory bring about health that can benefit the
life of an individual, a people, or even a culture? These questions are
suggested by the subtitle, On the Uses of Deleuze in a Non-Western
Context. Would Deleuzes philosophy (literary theory) still be the same
if translated into Japanese and Chinese? Further, would there be any
profound change in using Deleuze in the Chinese context, compared
with its use in France, Germany, Japan and other nations or regions? In
short, what kind of health can the Deleuzian critical and clinical aspects
of literature bring to life for non-Western people and their cultures? In
other words, what kind of symptomatology will the use of Deleuze
actually produce?
Applying Deleuzes philosophy to a non-Western context is not merely
a virtual concern; it is an actual problem. It involves asking multiple
questions that concern EastWest (literary) relations. It is undeniable
that either in the logic of dialectal thinking or in the ideological
framework of global mapping, East and West have been consistently

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321

considered as being oppositional, with the West generally assuming a

dominant pole, as exemplified by the postcolonial critique of Eurocentrism. Non-Western or Third World intellectuals are sensitive to
Western imperial eyes and thus often hesitate to adopt Western
theories to try and understand their own lives and cultures. As a result,
they are often caught in an ambivalence of love and hatred. Gayatri
Spivaks criticism of Deleuze is exemplary of this scenario. According to
Spivak, Deleuzes theory embodies the rhetoric of Euro-centrism, thus
repeating the typical form of Western subjectivity that eliminates the
voice of non-Western subalterns (Spivak 1988). Why and how Deleuze
is brought into the non-Western world thus becomes a serious problem.
What this argument actually reveals includes a demand for the voicing of
the minor (or minority) as well as an entire remapping of global poetics.
In other words, if the situation of the minor is not ready-made, as
Deleuze insists, how can the people of East Asia, China, Japan, Korea
and Taiwan be treated according to a concept of minor that has been
fashioned elsewhere? Moreover, if a standard global mapping with the
West as a privileged perspective is no longer adequate, what kind of
global poetics might we imagine beginning from this situation?
A more direct and urgent question should be added to this line
of inquiry: that is, the problematic of translation and not only the
representation of translation, but also the act of translation itself.
Deleuzes early work on Leopold Sacher-Masoch titled Masochism:
Coldness and Cruelty was first translated into Japanese in the 1970s,
and then The Logic of Sense, among others, was translated in the early
1980s, much earlier than they were into English in the 1990s. Now we
see more and more of Deleuzes works being translated into Chinese,
including A Thousand Plateaus in 2010. For non-native French speakers,
Deleuze is inevitably understood through translation. The translation
is not transparent, however, and the translator is never invisible. The
translators grasp of Deleuzes thought and his or her fluency in both
the source and target languages certainly determine the success of a
translation. We are not passing judgement on the qualities of those
translations, however, but rather raising a more essential question: is
Deleuze in French the same as Deleuze in English, in Japanese and
even in Chinese? For example, it has been noted that the English word
becoming cannot fully convey the French devenir, not to mention
examining the Japanese word naru and the Chinese word shengcheng
) or liubian (
). Other examples include assemblage, milieu,
(
plan(e) and affect. There seems an irreducible signifying rupture
between the meaning of these terms and their translations. And if this

322 Yu-lin Lee

is the case, what image of Deleuzes thought is offered in a foreign
language such as Chinese, and what relation can then be established
between French Deleuze and Chinese Deleuze, among others?

II. Translating Deleuze, or the Uses of Deleuze in the

Chinese Context
To the best of my knowledge, most of Deleuzes major works have
been translated into Chinese because of the growing interest in Deleuze
during the last decade. This interest mainly centres on Deleuzes
philosophy in relation to contemporary philosophies, and is not limited
to Deleuzes thoughts on literature. There is no doubt that Deleuze
is basically treated as a philosopher and not a literary theorist. And
yet, when it comes to using Deleuze, one may wonder how Deleuze
can explain the world and how he treats the arts.1 We see a few
Chinese scholars who make an effort to study Chinese literary texts
using Deleuzian aspects of literature.2 Such attempts immediately invite
serious criticism. They ask: how should Deleuzes literary theory be used
in the Chinese context, or are Deleuzian aspects of literature appropriate
for the study of Chinese literature? These doubts result from the long
history of receiving and appropriating Western theories in the East. As
early as in the 1960s, Taiwans academia was open to and embraced
the West. Western critical theories, including structuralism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, Marxism, postcolonial
theories, feminism, queer theories, eco-criticism, and many others, have
been introduced and further adopted as the paradigms for literary
and cultural studies. In this regard, Deleuzes philosophy and his idea
of literature belong to the same line of Euro-American theory. As
the quarrels between traditional Chinese literary canons and Western
literary norms continue, one thing is for sure: the question is raised once
again in the postcolonial atmosphere and in the global context. As a
result, this kind of question is not so much an inquiry into the nature
of interpretation and criticism as one concerning geopolitical cultural
politics.
Consequently, a more direct and urgent question than the use of
Deleuze is about the translation of Deleuze. As mentioned above,
Deleuze has been appropriated by Third World intellectuals through
translation,3 which inevitably confronts the politics of translation in
terms of whether a translation assumes Deleuzes thought as a set of
principles of literature, and further stresses the authority of Western
theories. Despite the recent discourse on translation that emphasises

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323

becoming more than authenticity, Western theories remain the source

of its originality in the translation process.4 Our inquiry then asks
how to translate Deleuze for use in the Third World. In this regard,
Spivaks understanding of translation provides a useful perspective.
She considers the postcolonial reader as the outsider/insider, whom
she calls the reader-as-translator (RAT), and suggests a solution that
produces sympathetic reading as translation: precisely not a surrender
but a friendly learning by taking a distance (Spivak 1993: 197). Spivak
calls our attention to non-transparent postcolonial intellectuals, such as
RAT, when reading and translating White theory. From a postcolonial
standpoint, Spivak asks, should RAT expect an account of the passing
on of the textualisation of the interior of the body through the voice, a
metonym for consciousness, from master father to master son? (199).
Following Spivaks insights on this problem, when translating White
theory, should we not be aware that theory has a tendency to legislate
and dominate the practice, and even produce an excess that it cannot
legislate and control? For example, in A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and
Guattari compare the Chinese Tao to Spinozas field of immanence, with
yin and yang as its two innate energies and powers (Deleuze and Guattari
1987: 157). The RAT is excited and discerned in reading/translating
this passage, and yet should one not doubt how Deleuzes body without
organs (BwO) should be translated and interpreted by Taoist thoughts,
or that the argumentation of yin and yang should not be surrendered to
the Deleuzian assemblages of desire?
How to translate Deleuze, therefore, including his philosophy and
literary theory? Does translation mean interpretation or transformation?
For one thing, translation confronts neologism. There are many
neologisms in Deleuzes writing. Neologism is always a challenging
task for any translator of philosophical texts and especially for the
translator of Deleuze. Deleuze regards philosophy as a discipline that
involves creating concepts (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 5), which
consequently involves producing neologisms instead of simply finding
pre-existing terms and concepts. Accordingly, translators of Deleuze
confront the problem of creating neologisms in the target language.
Creating neologisms in translation should not be regarded as a matter
of representation or interpretation of ideas and concepts, however;
translation is and of itself an act that is akin to philosophy.
Let us take the translation of the key concept, devenir/becoming,
as an example. Deleuzes particular use of devenir, as becoming in
English, has made it somewhat a neologism in French. The Chinese
translator must meet the difficulty of finding its equivalent in the target

324 Yu-lin Lee

language. Usually the two Chinese characters liu and bian are chosen and
combined to form a new term to convey the intention of the original. The
Chinese character liu ( ), with the radical of water, connotes the flow
of matter and its movements. In addition, because of its close association
with time in the Chinese context, the character can indicate the passing
of time and time itself (both present and absent, actual and virtual).
The meaning of the other Chinese character bian ( ) is more profound.
It has at least three readings of its literal meaning of change (
),
namely, the simplicity of hexagrams, the changes in time, and change
(or more precisely, non-change) in the transcendental sense, based on
the teachings of the Book of Change (I-Ching).5 As such, the Chinese
neologism liubian can by no means be treated as the equivalent of
the Deleuzian devenir. And yet, liubian echoes the French devenir and
marks a linguistic frontier on the terrain of the Chinese language. That
is to say, liubian, as a foreign term to the Chinese, combines with the
French devenir to form an indiscernible linguistic zone, whose meaning
is indistinguishable but proper neither to Chinese nor to French. In other
words, the neologism liubian-devenir forms a new zone of exchange, a
rhizomatic disjunction that lies in the middle.
As a result, the translation of Deleuzes concepts is less interpretation
than becoming/transformation; the former involves representation, and
the latter expression. Our suggestion, however, that liubian is not
close to being the equivalent of devenir is not simply to announce
the impossibility of any complete translation or to emphasise the
conditions of becoming as the representation of translation. Rather,
to translate Deleuze is to make the sequences vibrate, to open the word
onto unexpected internal intensities in short, an asignifying intensive
utilization of language (Deleuze and Guattari 1986: 22; original
emphasis). In articulating his views on literature, Deleuze proposes a
mode of writing and life through the process of minoritising language.
The effect of literature on language, according to Deleuze, is to induce
a foreign language within the language by pushing itself to the limit;
in other words, to stimulate the lines of escape by initiating the forces
of deterritorialisation within. The process can thus be enacted and
accomplished through the very act of translation.
In his study and practice of translation, Lawrence Venuti relates his
translation project to the Deleuzian concept of minor literature. He
argues that certain radical heterogeneity introduced by a translational
remainder could submit the major language to constant variation,
forcing it to become minor (Venuti 1998: 10). This is then the
becoming of both the language and the translator; it is a passage of

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325

life within language made possible by translation. Therefore, translation

of Deleuze is not a simple repetition that recounts his concepts and
ideas, but rather a creation that constitutes life within language. It is with
the same regard that translation can be regarded as a milieu/medium
in which and by which this new life is given to the language and also
the translator. In the preface to the Chinese translation of A Thousand
Plateaus, Brian Massumi reminds us of the function of translation, as
being similar to that of philosophy:
The Chinese translation of A Thousand Plateaus is a rigorous thought-event
in its own right, involves as much creation and invention as the original.
It is only fitting that the Chinese reader, finding this new creation in their
hands, treat the translation of their book as Deleuze and Guattari treat
every achievement: break it open. Resist its being European. Dont take
it as prescriptive for where is has come from. And especially dont take it
as prescriptive for where it has now arrived. Liberate the pure form of its
potential for Chinese thought, in a continuing of its own singular adventure
in becoming-between, coming together again in a relation to the great outside
its own futurity. (Massumi 2010: 13)

Massumis provocative statement articulates many ideas. First,

Massumi emphasises the function of translation as both creation
and invention, which is akin to the tenets of philosophy and
literature. Translation here for Massumi means mostly representation
of translation (the Chinese translation). Yet he also implies the very
act of translation by claiming that the Chinese translation is itself a
thought-event. Massumi admits that translation should not be treated
as a mere copy of the original, and one should treat such tasks as the
authors treated the original. It is well known that, for Deleuze and
Guattari, philosophy is rigorously the discipline that involves creating
concepts (Deleuze and Guattari 1994: 5); this is why Massumi regards
the translation of Deleuzes book as a thought-event, that is, a creative
endeavor (Massumi 2010: 12). Clearly, Massumi elevates translation to
where it has the same function as philosophy and literature, that is, to
create concepts and affects, respectively.
More significantly, a thought-event is itself an ethical event that
concerns life, especially for the Chinese reader. As Massumi explains,
to regard translation (the act and its representation) as a thoughtevent is neither to grasp Deleuzes thoughts as sets of principles, nor to
understand them from a certain perspective by way of translation, but
rather to incite instead the potentiality of the Chinese thought by pushing
the thought itself to a limit, to an outside. This transformation process

326 Yu-lin Lee

can only be accomplished through translating Deleuze, thus forming an
unexpected alliance with Deleuze.

III. Deleuze and Us

Deleuze maintains that literature/writing as a passage of life is neither
a description of life experience nor personal memories, dreams and
fantasies; rather, it is inseparable from actual becoming. Simply put,
for Deleuze, to write is to trace the lines of flight, which is a whole
cartography: one only discovers worlds through a long, broken flight
(Deleuze and Parnet 2002: 36). This is also the task that Deleuze
assigns to the writer, namely, to create a new earth, the movement
of which is deterritorialisation (367). Deleuze distinguishes the writer
from the author; the author is simply a subject of enunciation, and the
writer, in contrast, is the agent who invents assemblages starting from
assemblages which have invented him, he makes one multiplicity pass
into another (512). The assemblage is co-functioning; it is sympathy,
symbiosis (52).
The assemblage, instead of the word, idea and concept, is regarded
by Deleuze as a minimum real unit and may provide a standpoint
for viewing the manipulation of translation. Translation is neither
transport of words and ideas from one language to another, nor a search
for an equivalent in the target language, but an assemblage in-between
two terms and concepts. The Chinese translator speaks liubian with
and writes with French devenir: a conspiracy, a collision of love of
hatred (Deleuze and Parnet 2002: 52). Deleuze describes the process
of assemblage as being in the middle, on the line of encounter between
an internal and the external world (52). Assemblage is the function of
the writer, but it is also the elements of translation and the task of the
translator. Translation is pragmatic; in every translation, the translator
tries experiments, assembling ideas, relations and circumstances. It is
what Deleuze calls the geography of relations, whose logic is AND
rather than IS (567). Or more precisely, AND itself does not specify
a relation conjunction; it is that which subtends all relations, the path
of all relations (57). Therefore, translating Deleuze into Chinese is on
its own account the practice of the art of AND. The Chinese translator
speaks and writes in Chinese with the French Deleuze. With Deleuze
being an indiscernible stranger and a friend, the Chinese translatorwriter is using an absolutely foreign language in its own stuttering and
stammering in the terrain of Chinese language. And this logic of AND is
also the idea for a remapping of global poetics informed by translation.

Translating Deleuze in a Non-Western Context

327

The translator invents his or her own assemblage in translation,

as the writer also does in writing. Further, translation rises into
becomings and powers. In this regard, translation becomes a matter
of health. Deleuze declares that literature appears as an enterprise of
health (Deleuze 1997: 3). This definition, of course, does not mean
that the writer constantly maintains good health, despite the opposite
suggestion that writers are too often sick, physically or mentally. What
Deleuze suggests is that the writer processes an irresistible and delicate
health as seen through his writing (3). Here, Deleuze, in following
Nietzsche, considers writers as physicians rather than patients (3). Such
a Deleuzian concept of health delivered through writing is closely
related to becoming, that is, a-personal and pre-individual affect.
Deleuze concludes by saying, Health as literature, as writing, consists in
inventing a people who are missing (4). In a similar fashion, Massumi
cautions not to take the Chinese translation of Deleuze as descriptive of
[where] it has come from and for where it has arrived (Massumi 2010:
13). Consequently, the Third World translator is required to go beyond
ressentiment towards the West. Hence, translation of Deleuze becomes
not only Nietzschean health, but also Spinozist joy, and this request is
precisely the force of Spinozas question: What can a body do? , or
of what affects is it capable? (Deleuze and Parnet 2002: 60). Affects for
Deleuze are becomings, and the Spinozist joy demands demolishment
of the superiority of the West over the East and multiplies the maximum
of affects. In a similar fashion, Nietzschean health expects and seeks
the invention of a new people.
As a result, Massumis suggestion of the Chinese translation of
Deleuze as a thought-event at least speaks of two things. Translation
should be regarded as the same task of philosophy as creating concepts,
as well as an enterprise of health, just as literature functions in its
invention of a new people. Massumi describes such an activity as its
own singular adventure in becoming-between (Massumi 2010: 13). This
perspective reminds us of the Deleuzian reading of Spinoza. Deleuze
playfully titles the final chapter of his small book on Spinoza Spinoza
and Us (Deleuze 1988: 122). This phrase, according to Deleuze,
primarily means us in the middle of Spinoza; that is to say, to
perceive and to understand Spinoza by way of the middle (122). What
Deleuze suggests, then, is that to comprehend a philosopher like Spinoza,
one cannot simply pursue his philosophy as a single unity through a
systematic reading of all his philosophical principles; one must also
become involved in affective reading (129), that is, the laying out of
a common plane of immanence on which all bodies, all minds, and all

328 Yu-lin Lee

individuals are situated (122). We note Deleuzes remark in the phrase
in the middle of Spinoza: to be on this modal plane, or rather to install
oneself on this plane which implies a mode of living (122). I have
concluded this paper by giving this section the heading Deleuze and
Us. This mode of being in the middle is what we learn from Deleuze
and the works of Deleuze by way of translation: to create a new earth
by inventing new assemblages and to obtain a delicate health through
the continuous lines of encounter. Translation as a thought-event thus
rises to becomings and powers, and the Spinozist translator is born to
embody it.

Notes
1. In comparison with the massive amount of English materials on Deleuze studies
that includes a variety of disciplines, Chinese studies on Deleuze are limited to
the fields of philosophy, literature, art and cinema. These fields are emphasised
in the Chinese context not simply because they are Deleuzes primary concerns,
but also because of some translations of commentaries on Deleuze, including
Ronald Bogues Deleuze on Literature, published in 2006. Bogues two other
books of the same series, Deleuze on Music, Painting, and the Arts and Deleuze
on Cinema are also scheduled to be published. These publications may inspire
the use of Deleuze in the Chinese context. It is worth noting that Hong Kong
scholar Lou Guexiang published the first introductory book in Chinese language
on Deleuze in 1997. In his comprehensive introduction to Deleuzes thoughts,
issues concerning psychoanalysis, capitalism, language, literature and the arts are
particularly emphasised. This book portrays Deleuze as a philosopher and critical
theorist, thus providing a general image of Deleuzes thought to the Chinese
reader.
2. In the relatively few articles and papers, Deleuzes idea of literature for example,
minor literature, the fourth person narrative, among others scatter in criticisms
of Chinese and Taiwanese literatures.
3. As it may be argued, Third World intellectuals are mostly bilingual and
even trilingual, and likely able to access Deleuzes philosophical writings in
their original language, or at least through English translations rather than
Chinese ones. By emphasising the appropriation through translation, I use
translation here in a general sense, that is, the transportation or transference
of Deleuzes thought from the Western to the Chinese linguistic and cultural
context.
4. Related arguments can be found in Edward Saids Traveling Theory (1983),
Tejaswini Niranjanas Siting Translation (1992) and Lydia Lius Translingual
Practice (1995), among others.
5. There has been much debate on the Chinese translation for the term
), while the
devenir/becoming; scholars in Taiwan tend to use liubian (
) is selected, as in the newly published
traditional term shengcheng (
translation of A Thousand Plateaus. It should also be noted that the Chinese
syntax liubian, albeit a bit awkward, emphasises the process of changing and
thus a world of transformation; shengcheng, in contrast, suggests a finality or a
determinate state of affairs, although it still has the sense of becoming.

Translating Deleuze in a Non-Western Context

329

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