Dictionaries have historically served as instruments of linguistic standardisation and national consolidation, with the Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) standing as a paradigmatic example of this function. However, Han Shaogong’s A Dictionary of Maqiao subverts this role through its fictionalised lexicon format. Narrated by an Educated Youth sent to the fictional village of Maqiao, the novel compiles an idiosyncratic dictionary shaped by local dialects and cultural practices, opposing the homogenising aims of official lexicography. Han’s playful allusion to the OED – through the invented place-name “Maqiao” (literally, “horse-bridge”) – invites a satirical comparison with Oxford, foregrounding the novel’s challenge to dominant linguistic and lexicographic models epitomised by the OED. While the dictionary format of DMQ has been explored in previous scholarship, this chapter introduces a new dimension by analysing Julia Lovell’s English translation. It argues that Lovell’s version, which adapts the indexing from stroke-based to alphabetical order, inadvertently marginalises the novel’s local particularities and reflects the broader hegemonies of alphabetic, Western-centric linguistic norms. By tracing DMQ ’s friction with both the OED and its English translation, this chapter situates the novel within a transnational discourse of translation, literature and modernity, demonstrating how Han’s work contests the imagined coherence of language and history by foregrounding the improvised, the unfamiliar, and the minor.