A Report On The Translation Of Nightmare Town

This report is based on the translation of the short story entitled Nightmare Townwritten by Dashiell Hammett, a master of hardboiled detective writer. The first halfpart of the fiction was chosen to be translated. An integration of characteristics ofhardboiled detective fictions and difficulties in translation is made by the writer toobtain an in-depth thinking on both original text and version.The report is divided into five parts:The first part is the description of translation task, the second one describestranslation process which includes the preparation before translation, translationprocedures and post-translation issues. In the third part the translator analyses ontypical examples in translation, while the next part discusses the gains achieved fromthe translation practice. The fifth part is a conclusion over the whole report.Due to the unique characteristics of hardboiled detective fictions and suchfictions is not very popular among Chinese readers, few hardboiled detective fictionswere translated into Chinese. The translator regards this task as an attempt: firstly, it isa practice for the translator to improve personal translation skills; secondly, thetranslator hopes this task will offer translators who have problems in rendering thiskind of literary works an example with the analysis on typical examples in this report.