《色戒》英译本源于Julia Lovell 女性之手。Lovell 女性是剑桥大学中国历史和文学教授，已出版多部中国题材的著作和译作。譬如最新的《长城：中国面对世界》（The Great Wall: China Against the World, 1000 BC-AD 2000）与韩少功的《马桥词典》英译本等。
张爱玲小说的翻译，好像只有女人能胜任。不说文思细密，就是那服饰和打扮的描写，譬如王佳芝在麻将桌上的装扮，令我等望而却步：云鬓蓬松往上扫，后发齐肩，光着手臂，电蓝水渍纹缎齐膝旗袍，小圆角衣领只半寸高，像洋服一样。领圈一只别针，与碎钻镶蓝宝石的纽扣耳环成套。
Lovell 女性却信笔译来，举重若轻：
She had her hair pinned nonchalantly back from her face, then allowed to hang down to her shoulders. Her sleeveless cheongsam of electric blue moir satin reached to the knees, its shallow, rounded collar standing1 only half an inch tall, in the western style. A brooch fixed2 to the collar matched her diamond-studded sapphire3 button earrings4.
我另外摘录小说中重点场景译文如下，作为中文翻译英文范例，与英语同行们一同学习：
（在珠宝店，王佳芝心神不宁，在钻戒的璀璨里，为情而伤。）
这个人是真爱我的，她忽然想，心下轰然一声，若有所失。
He really loves me, she thought. Inside she felt a raw tremor5 of shockthen a vague sense of loss.
（易先生脱险后，余悸未消，心系红颜，悔愧交加。）
她临终肯定恨他。不过无毒不老公。不是如此的男子汉，她也不会爱他。
She must have hated him at the end. But real men have to be ruthless. She wouldn't have loved him if he'd been the sentimental6 type.
得一知己，死而无憾。他感觉她的影子会永远依傍他，安慰他。虽然她恨他，她最后对他的感情强烈到是什么感情都不相干了，只不过有感情。他们是原始的猎人与猎物的关系，虎与伥的关系，最后极的占有。她这才生是他的人，死是他的鬼。
But now that he had enjoyed the love of a beautiful woman, he could die happily-without regret. He could feel her shadow forever near him, comforting him. Even though she had hated him at the end, she had at least felt something. And now he possessed7 her utterly8, primitively-as a hunter does his quarry9, a tiger his kill. Alive, her body belonged to him; dead, she was his ghost.
