This paper examines translator autonomy in contemporary Chinese-to-English literary translation through a comparative analysis of Zhang Yueran's

Jiǎn

(茧

2016) and Jeremy Tiang's English translation

Cocoon

(2022). Drawing on Lefevere's rewriting theory

Berman's analytics of deformation

Venuti's theorization of translator invisibility

and Bourdieu's field theory

the study proposes a tripartite framework that categorizes translatorial decisions into selection (what is included or excluded)

arrangement (how retained material is structured)

and expression (how it is rendered in English). The analysis reveals a consistent pattern of domestication across all three categories: the removal of an entire documentary narrative strand and a secondary storyline

the replacement of a disorienting opening with a conventional entry point and the dissolution of the five-chapter architecture

and systematic tendencies toward syntactic compression

philosophical narrowing

and figurative simplification. These convergent modifications

none disclosed through paratextual apparatus

transform the English

Cocoon

into a shorter

smoother

and more conventionally structured novel aligned with Anglophone market expectations. The paper argues that the three types of translatorial decisions entail different degrees of creative authority and different et

hical obligations of transparency

with decisions of selection demanding the highest level of disclosure precisely because they are the least visible to target-language readers.