At a press conference held on July 26, Ma Ainong said that she saw a book called Anne of Green Gables at a bookstore last year that was labeled as being published by the China Women's Publishing House and translated by Zhou Li.

She found the book to be "90 percent similar" to her own version published much earlier by People's Literature Publishing House. She said she translated the work in 1986 together with her grandfather Ma Qinghuai, a senior translator of the Commercial Press.

"Many paragraphs were exactly the same," she said. "They just changed, added or cut a few words."

In particular, the translations of the poems in the book lend weight to her claims, she said.

"When it comes to translating poems, 1,000 translators will give 1,000 different versions," Ma said. "But the China Women's Publishing House version is the same as mine. It contains many of my grandfather's unique translation techniques."

The Beijing Times quoted an editor of Anne of Green Gables by China Women Publishing House surnamed Sun, who said it is "a serious matter if 90 percent of the contents were copied from Ma's work".

She added that she has never contacted the claimed translator Zhou Li.

In June, Ma also found a collection of foreign children's literature published by the New World Press, with the translator labeled as "Ma Ainong" on the cover, the inside cover and the copyright page - the character nong is written in a slightly different way from her own name.

Works in the collection, including the Novels of Mark Twain and Arabian Nights, have involved many languages, such as English, French, Russian and Arabic.

"You must find the original work before translating it," Ma said. "Usually one translator can not master so many languages."

She said the works could be copied from elsewhere, and the publisher has used the fame of her name to mislead consumers and make illegal profits.

But an executive of the publisher told the Beijing Morning Post under condition of anonymity that there is no legal problem with using the name because it is just a pseudonym.

"Besides, the two names are written in different ways," he said.

Ma is asking for a total of 830,000 yuan ($135,000) in damages from the two publishers. The court of Chaoyang district in Beijing will begin hearing the case on Aug 6.

What has happened to Ma is just "the tip of the iceberg" in the nation's translation business, said Ouyang Tao, an executive of the People's Literature Publishing House responsible for foreign literature translation and editing.

"Many translators are actually not qualified or professional enough," said Ouyang. "Some of them only translate part of the original works, but more of them just copy other people's translation and make some changes."

By hiring such people, some publishers can create "new versions" of foreign works easily and quickly to cheat the consumers, he said.

He also noted that many translators have experienced similar infringements, but it costs a lot of time and energy to uphold their rights.

The foreign literature editing department of People's Literature Publishing House is planning to help those translators investigate, collect evidence and file lawsuits against the illegal publications to protect their rights, he added.