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Newsletter Issue Nineteen  |  Paper Republic Newsletter

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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 …

Our News, Your News

Yilin Wang has won the 2024 John Glassco Translation Prize.

By Nicky Harman, November 6, '24

The prize, now in its 40th year, is awarded by the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada (LTAC). It is granted annually to a literary translator whose first book-length translation into English or French stands out for its literary merits and precision.

Wang was named the winner of this year’s prize for The Lantern and the Night Moths (Invisible Publishing), translations of selected works of five Chinese poets. She will receive a $1,000 prize and, along with the other two finalists, a one-year membership to LTAC.

In their citation, the jury said “Wang’s renderings eloquently and faithfully convey tone, rhythm and register, yet the translator-poet also walks confidently alongside the original poems and authors, expanding into the possibilities of the target language to better allow the images and evocations in the source texts to draw their English breath.”

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Newsletter Issue Nineteen

By Nicky Harman, November 1, '24

Paper Republic Stuff

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 to news@paper-republic.org.

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”.

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It's World Kid Lit Month!

By Nicky Harman, September 16, '24

World Kid Lit month takes place every September. It was started by the dynamic team at World Kid Lit - who have a beautiful new website packed with news about books from around the world, ready-made lists of books, activities and lots more. Help spread the word. Look for and use the hashtag #WorldKidLitMonth!

(this post has been edited)

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Newsletter Issue Eighteen: Women in Translation Month, and much more

By Nicky Harman, September 1, '24

August is Women in Translation Month!

WITMonth, an initiative started by Meytal Radzinski in 2014, aims to focus the minds of readers (and publishers) on translated books by women authors, and give them the prominence they deserve. Put simply, women writers are less often translated into English than men writers, and win fewer prizes. Chinese is no exception, as we have recorded in all the years that Paper Republic has been compiling its annual Roll Call of Chinese writers published in translation. Last year, Eric Abrahamsen wrote for the 2023 Roll Call: ‘There is an interesting and varied collection of titles, including classics, left-fielders, big names, and small(er) names. The non-fiction in particular is a wonderful spread of current events, political topics, and essays. [But…] There also continues to be a marked gender imbalance: only two female poets in the poetry section; in fiction only 6 women to 16 men. To find out who those women are, follow the link above!

But rather than just bandy depressing numbers around here, we thought we’d start with a reminder of interviews of Chinese women writers, put together by Nicky Harman and Natascha Bruce, in which we explore how Chinese women authors from mainland China see themselves and their status. Our aim in translating and publishing these interviews was to bring the opinions of Chinese women writers on this topic, in all their rich variety and complexity, to English-language readers. Our survey was conducted in 2019-2020, but is still well worth looking at again. Here it is

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Please join the Open University and Paper Republic for the 8th session of our Modern Chinese Literature Online Book Club.

By Nicky Harman, June 24, '24

Friday 12th July, 1-2pm UK time (8-9pm Beijing time).

In this session, facilitated by Nicky Harman and Emily Jones from Paper Republic, we'll be discussing the story 'Notes from a Consulting Room' by Sophie Zuo Fei (昨非) and translated by Dylan Levi King and Yun Qin Wang (王韵沁).
You can read the translation of the story in English here: Read Paper Republic: Notes from the Consulting Room and the Chinese version is available here.

We are delighted that the author Sophie Zuo Fei (昨非) and translator Dylan Levi King will be joining us for the session.
The book club takes place online using MS teams and is held in English. You do not need to be able to speak Chinese to attend. All are welcome to attend.
For more information and to register to attend, please register here on Eventbrite to attend. The meeting link will be sent to you about a week before the event (note: the confirmation email after your registration does not contain the meeting link).

We look forward to seeing you there!

The Online Confucius Institute team at The Open University
Email: online-ci@open.ac.uk

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A group of us held an impromptu online translation workshop on 5th June 2024.

By Nicky Harman, June 11, '24

A group of us held an impromptu online translation workshop on 5th June 2024. It came about because there were a fair number of people who submitted fully-translated pieces for the new Read Paper Republic "Home" series. We couldn't choose all of the pieces and decided to offer any whose work had not been chosen the chance to join Nicky Harman and Chen Du for an hour-and-a-half session. It was very informative, with everyone contributing. We discussed specific challenges we had while translating, the business of translation, and where to find additional resources. Jessica Morris's detailed notes follow:

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Call for Submissions: Read Paper Republic: Home

By Eric Abrahamsen, December 22, '23

A refuge, a recollection, a promised land, a prison; the arms of family, or four concrete walls in the sky... Home means something different to each of us, but it means something to all of us. For our next Read Paper Republic series, we're looking for stories of home: of the quest to find one; the struggle to escape one; the battle to defend one. Fiction, non-fiction or poetry: it's all welcome.

If you are a Chinese>English translator and know of a home-related short story, essay or poems which you really like, we want to hear from you! This publication aims to support emerging translators (translators who haven't published more than one book) and we particularly welcome entries from those new to the profession.

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2023 Roll-Call of Chinese Literature in English Translation

By Eric Abrahamsen, December 15, '23

Here it is, the 2023 Roll Call of Chinese literature published in English translation!

First the good news: this is an interesting and varied collection of titles, including classics, left-fielders, big names, and small(er) names. The non-fiction in particular is a wonderful spread of current events, political topics, and essays.

The slightly less wonderful news is that there's simply less of it! After several years of steadily-increasing numbers, the shelf shrank a bit this year. Of course it's impossible to know precisely why, but we will note that so much direct cultural contact between China and English-speaking countries has dried up since the pandemic: book fairs canceled, funding dried up, plane tickets expensive.

There also continues to be a marked gender imbalance: only two female poets in the poetry section; in fiction only 6 women to 16 men.

Regardless, these are great offerings. Special shout-outs to Owlish, which seems to be attracting the genuine love and enthusiasm that we all wish for our books; Jeremy Tiang, who is showing up on so many literary prize lists; and the Sinoist publishing house, which accounts for more than a quarter of the books on the fiction list.

And you're still in time for Christmas shopping!

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