Translation

Soong Translation Studies award–call for entries

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CALL FOR ENTRIES
The 27th Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Awards (2024–2025)

Introduction

Stephen C. Soong (1919–1996) was a prolific writer and translator as well as an active figure in the promotion of translation education and research. To commemorate his contributions in this field, the Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Awards were set up in 1997 by the Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with a donation from the Soong family. They give recognition to academics who have made contributions to original research in Chinese Translation Studies, particularly in the use of first-hand materials for historical and cultural investigations.

Entry and Nomination

RCT invites Chinese scholars or research students in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan or overseas regions to participate in the 27th Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Awards (2024–2025). General regulations are as follows:

  1. All Chinese scholars or research students affiliated to higher education/research institutes in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan or overseas regions are eligible to apply.
  2. Submitted articles must be written in either Chinese or English and published in a refereed journal within the calendar year 2024. Each candidate can enter up to two articles for the Awards. The publication date, title and volume/number of the journal in which the article(s) appeared must be provided.
  3. Up to three articles are selected as winners each year. A certificate and a cheque of HK$3,000 will be awarded to each winning entry.
  4. The adjudication committee, which consists of renowned scholars in Translation Studies from Greater China, will meet in June 2025. The results will be announced in July 2025 and winners will be notified individually.
  5. Articles submitted will not be returned to the candidates.

Continue reading Soong Translation Studies award–call for entries →

Paper Republic 2024 Roll Call

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2024 Roll-Call of Chinese Literature in English Translation
By Jack Hargreaves, published 

‘Tis the end of 2024 (Where it’s gone? Don’t ask me.) and that means it’s time for the annual roll-call of Chinese-language literature published in English translation.

It has been a mixed year, with, on the plus side, there being more women authors published than in 2023, and just more works of fiction in general — more prizewinning works of fiction, too.

But there does seem to be less poetry. And when I say there are more works by women than there has been, the increase isn’t dramatic. In fact, you might say that this year is, on the whole, a return to business as usual after the post-Covid years — those weren’t fallow years, but they were lower yield.

Still, it’s a really exciting list of titles which includes some of my favourite reads from 2024, full-stop. I’m also confident that we’ve missed some works out, especially when it comes to poetry, so please do drop any absent titles in the comments below and we’ll make sure to add them. The same goes for any particularly glowing reviews you’ve come across, or prize announcements (we’ve mostly included winners, but please also share any shortlisted or longlisted works).

Special mentions go to translators Jennifer Feeley and Lin King for bringing us five showstoppers between them, with Mourning a Breast and Tongueless, and Taiwan Travelogue, Cloud Labour and book two of The Boy From Clearwater, respectively. Continue reading Paper Republic 2024 Roll Call →

Six Poems by Mu Cao

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of “Six Poems by Mu Cao,” translated by Hongwei Bao. The translations, along with the original Chinese poems, appear below and at their online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/mu-cao/. As previously announced on the blog, Mu Cao is a recent winner of the Prince Claus Impact Award.

Kirk Denton, MCLC
Six Poems by Mu Cao

By Mu Cao 墓草

Translated by Hongwei Bao

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright December 2024)

Photo credit: Fan Popo.

[Translator’s note: The following poems are presented with Chinese version first, followed by its English translation. The dates at the end of the poems indicate when the poems were first written. The author’s and translator’s bios can be found at the end. I have opted to present all the translated lines in lower case.] 

蚂蚁

为了停留在人世间
我强暴地压抑自己
为了感觉生命的存在
我把自身和一只蚂蚁比较

我看到蚂蚁用强忍的牙齿
向野兽说话
我看到另一只冷漠的蚂蚁
带着他的技术
去远方流浪

（2006年9月11日）

ants

to survive in this world
i forcefully suppress myself
to feel the existence of my being
i imagine myself to be ants

i see an ant challenge a beast
clenching its unyielding teeth
i see another ant
take his craft
and leave, drifting in an unknown world

(September 11, 2006) Continue reading Six Poems by Mu Cao →

Sino Queer Translation–cfp

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Call for Papers
Sino Queer Translation: Sexualities across Languages, Cultures, and Media
Edited by Hongwei Bao and Yahia Ma

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of scholarly works examining the relationship between queerness and translation, including the translation of queer texts in different languages and the development of non-normative strategies in translation. Much of the existing work primarily focuses on translations of/between English and Indo-European languages, literatures, and cultures, including Queer Theory and Translation Studies (Brian James Baer, 2021), Queering Translation, Translating the Queer: Theory, Practice, Activism (edited by Brian James Baer and Klaus Kaindl, 2018), and Queer in Translation (edited by B. J. Epstein and Robert Gillett, 2017), Queering Modernist Translation: The Poetics of Race, Gender and Queerness (Christian Bancroft, 2021).

Despite the dominance of scholarship on translations between Indo-European languages in the field, there are some scholarly works looking at queer aspects of Chinese literature in English translation and queer translation in the context of the Sinosphere. For example, James St. Andre’s book Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance (2018) looks at the translation of Chinese texts into English and French from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries from the perspective of cross-identity performance, using queer metaphors such as drag; Ting Guo and Jonathan Evans’ work focuses on translational and transnational queer fandom in China and queer female teen dramas in translation (Guo and Evans, 2020, 2024). Other examples include the discussion of how the concept of queer has been translated, circulated, and received in Chinese and Sinophone contexts (Song Hwee Lim 2008, 2018; Andrea Bachner 2017; Hongwei Bao 2020, 2024; Wangtaolue Guo 2021), Leo Tak-Hung Chan’s (2018) study of parodic Japanese manga versions of the Chinese classic Xiyouji 西遊記 (The Journey to the West), and Yahia Ma and Tets Kimura’s (2024) analysis of Li Kotomi’s queer novel Hitorimai /獨舞 (Solo Dance) in three languages from the perspective of self-translation, rewriting, and translingual address. Continue reading Sino Queer Translation–cfp →

An Afternoon with Howard Goldblatt

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Dear MCLC Community,

A few weeks ago, we held a wonderful event at San Francisco State to honor our alum, former faculty member, and pre-eminent translator of Chinese literature, Professor Howard Goldblatt. The event was entitled “Farewells and Homecomings: An Afternoon with Celebrated Translator Howard Goldblatt.” Professor Goldblatt shared stories about his time at SF State, his first trip to China in the 1980s, and his friendships with Chinese writers. The event culminated with Professor Goldblatt presenting SF State with a priceless gift. The recording of the event, along with a slideshow and more information, can now be found on our website. You can also view the recording and slideshow below.

https://mll.sfsu.edu/news/afternoon-celebrated-translator-howard-goldblatt

Happy Thanksgiving,

Frederik Green

Taiwan novel makes history winning National Book Award

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Source: Radio Taiwan International (11/21/24)
Taiwan novel makes history winning US National Book Award
By Amanda Ruth Stephens

Taiwan novel makes history winning US National Book Award

Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-zi’s “Taiwan Travelogue ” won the U.S. National Book Award Wednesday. In her acceptance speech reflecting on the theme of Taiwanese identity, she said, “[I] wrote about the past to move on to the future.” (Photo via YT/@NationalBook)

The English translation of the novel Taiwan Travelogue (臺灣漫遊錄) made history Wednesday as the first Taiwanese novel to win the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature since the award was founded in 1967. The award is among one of the most prestigious literature awards in the world, mentioned alongside the Man Booker Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature.

Written by author Yang Shuang-zi (楊双子), the book tells the story of a Japanese travel writer Chizuko, and her Taiwanese translator Chizuru traveling along Taiwan’s railway system on a “culinary journey” during the period of Japanese occupation. During the journey, Chizuko is faced with confronting the layered power dynamics in an intimate story that the New York Times praises as “a nesting-doll narrative about colonial power in its many forms[…] of translations, [and] of empires”.

The author, Yang Shuang-zi, is actually a pen name for twin sisters Yang Jo-tzu (楊若慈) and Yang Jo-hui (楊若暉) who worked as collaborators focusing on narrative creation, and historical research and translation. While Yang Jo-hui passed away in 2015, her sister has continued to use the pen name in her honor. Continue reading Taiwan novel makes history winning National Book Award →

How to make translations more visible in library catalogues

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I’m forwarding the message below  from Christophe Fricker, member of the Translators Association (UK), about how to make translations more visible in library catalogues (incl. OCLC). Fricker presents useful info and a call for action regarding translations from all languages, including from English to Chinese–Helen Wang <helentao@hotmail.co.uk>

Dear all, you may remember a conversation about why so many translations don’t show up in library catalogues. I have found out why this is, and how it can be remedied.

It needs the vendors of ‘discovery layers,’ i.e. the search engines behind your library’s catalogue to ‘index’ the field in which information about translation is entered. There are two bits of good news here: the change is relatively straightforward, and OCLC, the biggest player in the industry, is already asking whether they should make this change.

Librarians need to say yes to the ‘ideas request’ that OCLC has put out in their ‘community center.’ So far, very few have responded, so we need to draw the attention of librarians to this giant opportunity for translation, and provide them with the arguments why they should offer support.

I have summarised what is needed, and possible, and the main argument for making translation visible in library catalogue results specifically:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/librarians-oclc-clarivate-discover-translation-christophe-fricker-mmf3e/

Please share if you can; respond if you are a librarian; and add comments and corrections.

Thank you!

Christophe Fricker

Call for translator

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The editors of an anthology on nüshu, the gender-specific “women’s script,” are seeking a skilled translator to assist with the translation of selected primary sources. Materials include ballads, poems, and letters originally written in nüshu and transcribed into Chinese, awaiting translation into English. These translations will become part of the anthology, intended as resource for teaching and research. The ideal translator should be fluent in working with Chinese, especially in contexts such as translating poems and ballads.

Interested translators are invited to contact Eason Lu at eason.lu@columbia.edu to participate in a sample translation. Compensation will be provided, with honorariums available for accepted translations. Please submit a brief bio and a summary of relevant translation experience to Eason Lu by Monday, December 9th.

Editors
Eason Lu, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
Fei-wen Liu, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica

Posted by: Eason Lu eason.lu@columbia.edu

Affordances of the Sinophone Literary Translator

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Symposium on the Affordances of the Sinophone Literary Translator

With a keynote address by Michael Berry and masterclasses by Nicky Harman, Jennifer Feeley, Christopher Rea, Anna Gustafsson Chen, and Gigi Chang, a hybrid-mode symposium will be held on the affordances of Sinophone literary translation at M+ in Hong Kong on 13-14 December.

Webpage: https://shorturl.at/6cWCr
Registration: https://shorturl.at/lSt0Q

All are welcome, but please register whether you’re attending in person or online.

Posted by: Darryl Sterk <shidailun@gmail.com>

Granta special issue

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Granta has just published a special issue on contemporary Chinese literature. For the time being, the texts are accessible online.

Granta 169: China (Autumn 2024)

At a time when China has become a unifying spectre of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta seeks to bring the country’s literary culture into focus.

Featuring fiction by Yu Hua, Zou Jingzhi, Yan Lianke, Jianan Qian, Shuang Xuetao, Mo Yan, Zhang Yueran, Ban Yu, Yang Zhihan and Wang Zhanhei.

Essays by Xiao Hai and Han Zhang, as well as a conversation between Wu Qi and Granta.

Photography from Feng Li, Haohui Liu and collaborators Li Jie and Zhang Jungang.

And poetry from Huang Fan, Lan Lan, Hu Xudong and Zheng Xiaoqiong.

More Swindles from the Late Ming

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More Swindles from the Late Ming: Sex, Scams, and Sorcery
by Zhang Yingyu (fl. 1617)
Translated by Bruce Rusk and Christopher Rea
Columbia University Press, November, 2024
ISBN: 9780231212458

“In the canon of the con, More Swindles from the Late Ming is an honest-to-goodness treasure—without a trace of honesty or goodness. Rusk and Rea have succeeded brilliantly with this translation, unearthing and explaining the roots of deep moral anxieties in China. Like the greatest crime stories, these harrowing tales read like sociology in disguise, reminding us how much of our daily life rests on a thin foundation of trust—if we can keep it.” — Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

DESCRIPTION

A woman seduces her landlord to extort the family farm. Gamblers recruit a wily prostitute to get a rich young man back in the game. Silver counterfeiters wreak havoc for traveling merchants. A wealthy widow is drugged and robbed by a lodger posing as a well-to-do student. Vengeful judges and corrupt clerks pervert the course of justice. Cunning soothsayers spur on a plot to overthrow the emperor. Yet good sometimes triumphs, as when amateur sleuths track down a crew of homicidal boatmen or a cold-case murder is exposed by a frog. These are just a few of the tales of crime and depravity appearing in More Swindles from the Late Ming, a book that offers a panorama of vice—and words of warning—from one seventeenth-century writer.

This companion volume to The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection presents sensational stories of scams that range from the ingenious to the absurd to the lurid, many featuring sorcery, sex, and extreme violence. Together, the two volumes represent the first complete translation into any language of a landmark Chinese anthology, making an essential contribution to the global literature of trickery and fraud. An introduction explores the geography of grift, the role of sex and family relations, and the portrayal of Buddhist clergy and others claiming supernatural powers. Opening a window onto the colorful world of crime and deception in late imperial China, this book testifies to the enduring popularity of stories about scoundrels and their schemes. Continue reading More Swindles from the Late Ming →

Paper Republic newsletter 19

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The newsletter

As some of you will know, the newsletter has been going for a couple of years now. Huge thanks to Jack Hargreaves for bringing it out fortnightly at the start. Recently there have been a few gaps, but now we’re back! From now on, we aim to publish our newsletter every two months. We hope you enjoy it. Please ask your friends to subscribe. As a special bonus, you can win a book, as a prize, if you get a number of friends to subscribe. Please tell us if you have news you’d like us to include in the newsletter, just drop us an email — click here. We’re also delighted to tell you that you can now read the archived copies of our newsletter on the Paper Republic webpage here.

Read Paper Republic

One of our Read Paper Republic pieces in the Home series now features on the Youtube video channel, Translators Aloud: Anne Henochowicz and poet Yu Xinqiao read from “At Night I Rise to Mop the Floor”.

Events – STOP PRESS

Meet the World: Ká-sióng: Imagining a Different World Through Taiwanese Literature

Thursday 7 November, Online, 12.00 – 13.15 GMT. FREE.

Join National Centre for Writing to celebrate Ká-sióng, a new series of chapbooks from Strangers Press, focusing on literature from Taiwan. Continue reading Paper Republic newsletter 19 →

Talk with Tongueless author and translator

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Book Talk (hybrid) with Hong Kong author Lau Yee-wa and translator Jennifer Feeley at the University of Denver

Time: Oct 23, 2024; 5-7 pm (MST)

Speakers:

Lau Yee-wa (author of Tougueless)
Jennifer Feeley (translator)

Moderator:

Wayne CF Yeung (University of Denver)

Sponsors:

University of Denver
Hong Kong Arts Development Council
Pennsylvania State University

Zoom link:

https://udenver.zoom.us/j/5350893952

(The moderator would like to thank Dr. Nicolai Volland and Dr. Shuang Shen (Pennsylvania State University) for their support with arranging Yee-wa’s visit.)

The Typesetter

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Ping Zhu’s translation “The Typesetter,” by Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies writer Shen Yuzhong. The translation appears below and at its online home (which also includes the Chinese original): https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/the-typesetter/. My thanks to Ping Zhu for sharing her work with the MCLC community.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

The Typesetter 排字人

By Shen Yuzhong 沈禹鐘 (1889–1971)[1]

Translated by Ping Zhu

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September 2024)

The first page of the Chinese original in Red Magazine.

This story is a satire of the concept of “literature of blood and tears” (血和泪的文学) proposed by Zheng Zhenduo 郑振铎 in 1921. Instead of representing the blood and tears of the proletariat, Shen Yuzhong, a Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies author, wrote the story from the perspective of a worker who observes the literal “literature of blood and tears” produced by a writer. The Chinese original follows the translation.–Ping Zhu

The clanging of the bell in the printing factory wakes Wang Qin from his morning slumber. Rubbing his tired eyes, he knows it’s time to go to work at the factory again. He gets up grudgingly, puts on his clothes, grabs a basin, goes downstairs to fetch some water, and returns to his room to wash his face and neck. He lives in a small back room on the second floor, rented from a sub-landlord for five silver dollars a month. If you compare them to those of others in society, his living expenses are at the lowest level. However, Wang Qin’s earning capacity is quite weak; he only earns fifteen silver dollars a month at the factory. One-third of that goes to rent, the rest goes to food and clothing, leaving him perpetually worried about his hard life. Sometimes he thinks about changing his life, but that seems impossible. People’s lives are all assigned by capital, deeply oppressed by its forces. No matter what abilities you have, it’s difficult to struggle against capital.

The factory work starts every morning at seven, not long after the bell rings to wake the workers living nearby. Hearing the bell, everyone hurriedly bids farewell to their morning dreams and goes to obey its call. After washing up, Wang Qin also quickly goes out. He takes two copper coins from his pocket and buys some street food to eat along the way. This is his daily routine, not a one-off. When he arrives at the factory gate, he sees many of his coworkers streaming in. They’ve known each other for so long that they no longer bother with greetings or small talk. Once inside the factory, the workers take off their coats and start working amid the clatter of the machines. Continue reading The Typesetter →

Renditions valedictory issue 100

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It is with great pride that we write to announce the publication of Renditions no. 100, a landmark that follows fifty full years of publishing our journal. That we have continued to play an important role in literary communication between the Chinese-speaking realm and the world of letters in English is testified to by the extensive collection of pieces we have assembled for this 300-page valedictory issue, which includes masterly translations of a playful anthropomorphic biography by Su Shi, a celebrated classical poem by Lu Xun, and contemporary song lyrics about a post-industrialist China by the rock band Omnipotent Youth Society. A full table of content can be found here.

Orders of the issue can be placed at our e-bookstore, where readers can also purchase past editions or access out-of-print issues for free. We thank you humbly for your support over the years, and we hope that you will continue to support the Renditions Books and Renditions Paperbacks series, with Robert E. Hegel’s superb translation of the late-Ming epic novel Forgotten Tales of the Sui to appear soon.

Sincerely,

Renditions editorial team