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Nicky Harman lives in the UK. She translates full-time from Chinese, focussing on contemporary fiction, literary non-fiction, and occasionally poetry, by a wide variety of authors. When not translating, she spends time promoting contemporary Chinese fiction to English-language readers. She works for Paper-Republic.org, a non-profit registered in the UK, where she is also a trustee. She writes blogs (for instance Asian Books Blog), give talks and lectures, and takes part in literary events and festivals, especially with the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. She also mentors new translators, teaches summer schools (Norwich, London, Warwick and Bristol), and judges translation competitions. She tweets, with Helen Wang, as the China Fiction Bookclub @cfbcuk.
She taught on the MSc in Translation at Imperial College until 2011 and was co-Chair of the Translators Association (Society of Authors) 2014-2017.
Winner of the 2020 Special Book Award of China; the 2015 Mao Tai Cup People's Literature Chinese-English translation prize; and of first prize in the 2013 China International Translation Contest, Chinese-to-English section, with Jia Pingwa’s "Backflow River", 倒流河
Forthcoming publications:
Beijing Boys, A Novel (《男孩们》) Annabel Yang Hao, co-translated with Michael Day, Balestier, 2024
Fellow Feelings, Collected stories by Han Dong, co-translated with Megan Copeland and Jack Hargreaves, no publications details yet
2023 publications:
Shaanxi Opera, （《秦腔》）, Jia Pingwa, co-translated with Dylan Levi King, Amazon Crossing, 2023.
The Sojourn Teashop （《暂坐》）, Jia Pingwa, co-translated with Jun Liu, Sinoist Books, 2023
2022 publications:
Flight of the Bumblebee (《野蜂飞舞》）Huang Beijia, Balestier , 2023
Wake Me Up at Nine in the Morning, (《早上九点叫醒我》）, A Yi, Oneworld
Literary Lectures (《文学课》) , by Bi Feiyu, Routledge
Dinner for Six (《六人晚餐》), co-translated with Helen Wang, Balestier
I Want to be Good (《我要做好孩子》) , Huang Beijia, New Classic Books
2021 publications:
More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter, Shen Yang, Balestier
2020 publications:
Oriental Silk, by Zhu Xiaowen, Hatje Cantz (Germany)
2019 publications:
Broken Wings, By Jia Pingwa, ACA Publishing
2018 publications:
The Chilli Bean Paste Clan, by Yan Ge, Balestier Press (awarded a PEN Translates grant)
Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China, by Rao Pingru, Knopf Doubleday (awarded a PEN Translates grant)
2017 publications:
Jia Pingwa, Happy Dreams, Amazon Crossing, 2017.
Fish Tank Creatures, by Dorothy Tse, short story, translated with Natascha Bruce
2016 publications:
Crystal Wedding, novel by Xu Xiaobin, Balestier Press, 2016 (awarded a PEN Translates grant)
2015 publications:
Paper Tiger, essays by Xu Zhiyuan, co-translated with Michelle Deeter, Head of Zeus, 2015 (awarded a PEN Translates grant).
Sissy Zhong by Yan Ge, published READ PAPER REPUBLIC.
January:Bridges, by Dorothy Tse, published READ PAPER REPUBLIC. The translation and editing of this story is discussed and illustrated here: Free Word Centre.
Also, 2015-2016, READ PAPER REPUBLIC short story series: launching, planning, translating, editing, promotion and publicity.
2014 publications:
The Book of Sins by Chen Xiwo published by FortySix, October 2014.
White Horse, novella by Yan Ge, Hope Road Publishing, October 2014.
A Tabby-cat's Tale by Han Dong, winter 2014.
The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver by Chan Koon-chung, Doubleday, April 2014.
Snow and Shadow, short story collection by Dorothy Tse, East Slope Publishing, March 2014.
A New Development Model and China’s Future, by Deng Yingtao, Routledge, March, 2014.
The Stone Ox that Grazed, short story by Sun Yisheng in Asymptote, April 2014.
A Loud Noise, poems by Han Dong, March 2014.
Other Published Translations in date order:
Urban Control and the Modernist City - essay by Leung Man-Tao, in LA Review of Books, originally appeared in Paper Republic, August 2013.
Woman Fish, by Dorothy Tse, for the Guardian newspaper, March 2013
The Shades who Periscope through Flowers to the Sky, by Sun Yisheng, for Words Without Borders, December 2012, and Dad, Your Name is Bao Tian, by Sun Yisheng, for The World of Chinese, March 2013.
Old Man Xinjiang, by Xue Mo, in China Stories for the Guardian newspaper, April 2012.
The Man with the Knife by Chen Xiwo, for Words Without Borders, November 2012
'Goodbye to Anne', in the novella collection The Road of Others, by Anni Baobei, Makedo Publishing, 2012.
Throwing out the Baby, by Xu Zechen, in Words Without Border, April 2012.
Shi Cheng: Short Stories from Urban China, Comma Press "Tales from Ten Cities" series, the two by Han Dong and Ding Liying, 2012
Flowers of Nanjing by Yan Geling, , published by Chatto and Windus, January 2012
A Phone Call from Dalian: Selected Poems by Han Dong, published by Zephyr Press, April 2012. Multiple reviews including World Literature Today and Peony Moon
The Eye of the Eagle, short story by Bai Hua, published by Hope Road Publishing
Prize-winning novel Gold Mountain Blues/Jin Shan by Zhang Ling, published by Penguin Canada
Short stories for Ou Ning's Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, 2009, and literary magazine Chutzpah, 2010 and 2011.
Message from Unknown Chinese Mothers (Author: Xinran), Chatto & Windus, 2010.
China Witness (author: Xinran), oral history Co-translator with Esther Tyldesley and Julia Lovell. Chatto & Windus , 2008.
Banished! (author: Han Dong) (《扎根》 韩东), novel. University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Won a PEN Translation Fund Award (2006) for this work. Longlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize, 2008.
‘Long Corridor, Short Song’ (author: Zi Ren, in To Pierce the Material Screen: An Anthology of 20th Century HK Literature, to be pub. Renditions, Hong Kong 2008); (《长廊的短调》 梓人) short story.
China Along the Yellow River (author: Prof. Cao Jinqing, pub. Routledge Curzon, December 2004); (《黄河边的中国》 曹锦清) sociology of rural China.
K – The Art of Love (author: Hong Ying, pub. Marion Boyars, 2002); (《K》 虹影) novel.
Research publications:
Li Hao: Translation of Contemporary Chinese Literature in the English-speaking World: An Interview with Nicky Harman, The AALITRA Review, No 4 (2012)
What's that got to do with anything? Coherence and the translation of relative clauses from Chinese. In Journal of Specialised Translation (www.jostrans.org) issue 13, January 2010
Foreign Culture, Foreign Style: a Translator’s View of Modern Chinese Fiction. In Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 14(1): 13-31. (2006).
Beyond Paper Dictionaries: Mining the Web for Technical Terminology in Chinese (available from http://isg.urv.es/cttt/cttt/research.html, or on request from NH).
Visiting Fellow at the Research Centre for Translation at Chinese University Hong Kong, April 2006. Visiting Scholar, Fudan University and Beijing University, China, 2008.
Nicky Harman translated for READ PAPER REPUBLIC, week 3, 2 July 2015, and READ PAPER REPUBLIC, week 10, 20 August 2015.
| One Night on the Wharf | by Han Dong | February 01, 2022 |
| View from a Window | by Han Dong | April 16, 2020 |
| Hide! Hide! Hide! | by Yan Geling | March 28, 2020 |
| Letter to My Mother | by Ou Ning | October 04, 2018 |
| Dad Your Name is Field-Keeper | by Sun Yisheng | February 04, 2017 |
| Gu Jieming – a Life | by Han Dong | June 09, 2016 |
| The Bathtub – Scene of a Struggle | by Han Dong | May 12, 2016 |
| Snow | by Xu Xiaobin tr. Natascha Bruce and Nicky Harman | March 24, 2016 |
| That Damned Thing She Said | by Fu Yuli | March 03, 2016 |
| Backflow River | by Jia Pingwa | February 25, 2016 |
| Apery | by Sun Yisheng | January 28, 2016 |
| The Cry of the Deer | by Han Dong | January 21, 2016 |
| Sissy Zhong | by Yan Ge | August 20, 2015 |
| January: Bridges | by Dorothy (Hiu Hung) Tse | July 02, 2015 |
| The Cry of the Deer | by Han Dong | Pathlight: New Chinese Writing |
| Mother Earth (excerpt) | by Chiu Zu-Yin | Books from Taiwan |
| Free! | by Wang Bang | Words Without Borders |
| Old Man Xinjiang | by Xue Mo | The Guardian |
The Paper Republic database exists for reference purposes only. We are not the publisher of these works, are not responsible for their contents, and cannot provide digital or paper copies.
By Nicky Harman, October 23, '17
Han Dong's first film, One Night at the Wharf, adapted from his novella At the Wharf/在码头, had its first showing at Busan Film Festival last week and got a decent review in Variety. Han Dong directed it, Jia Zhangke was the producer. No news about when it's coming westward yet. More pictures of the screening here.
By Nicky Harman, October 9, '17
Read it here
By Nicky Harman, October 1, '17
By Nicky Harman, October 1, '17
I've written a few blogs to promote my translation of Jia Pingwa's 《高兴》, published by Amazon Crossing as "Happy Dreams". Here's one, for Bookanista. We're also running at least two live events in London. Watch this space.
By Nicky Harman, September 13, '17
Bookriot: A Conversation Between Literary Translators Marian Schwartz and Nicky Harman
Marian Schwartz is the award-winning translator of “Russian crime queen” Polina Dashkova’s first book to be translated into English, Madness Treads Lightly. She is the principal English translator of the works of Nina Berberova, and translated the New York Times bestseller The Last Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky, as well as classics by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ivan Goncharov, Yuri Olesha, and Mikhail Lermontov.
Nicky Harman, winner of the Mao Tai Cup People’s Literature Chinese-English translation prize 2015 and the 2013 China International Translation Contest, Chinese-to-English section, and is the translator of Happy Dreams by Jia Pingwa, one of China’s most celebrated writers.
We’ve brought them together to talk about their process, communicating with their (still living) authors, difficulties in their work, and more...
By Nicky Harman, September 11, '17
Here's a nice article I came across in Atlas Obscura about authors (Maya Nandakumar gives mainly classical ones as examples) who invent their own words. Made me think of a few living Chinese authors who seem to be similarly inventive with words or expressions ... Jia Pingwa comes to mind. On the other hand, when I can't find certain mystifying expressions anywhere else online, I often wonder if it's really the author's own invention or just that certain varieties of language (local dialects) are poorly represented on the internet....
By Nicky Harman, September 10, '17
In Sheffield on Monday 16th October? Come and hear Nicky Harman and Michelle Deeter debate their competing translations of an Aman Song short story, in "Forty Nine Degrees – Chinese Translation Slam." In the heat of a traffic jam, a man and woman get stuck in a taxi on their way to visit the woman’s parents. She’s a graduate with few prospects; he’s the man her parents desperately want her to marry. Will they make the train? With host Deborah Smith from Tilted Axis Press. 7:30pm. http://www.offtheshelf.org.uk/…/forty-nine-degrees-chinese…/
By Nicky Harman, August 24, '17
I came across this fascinating discussion on the Facebook page of the (UK) Translators Association Diaspora and with David Warriner's permission am re-posting it here.
22 August 2017, from David Warriner:
Here's a challenge for the hive mind: I'm translating a literary crime thriller set in coastal Quebec that's peppered with local flavour, mainly through religious swearing. The main challenge with the novel is going to be keeping that local flavour through the characters' speech while maintaining readability for a predominantly British audience. Most of the expressions are used so frequently, it's not really an option to keep them in French. And they're peppered so liberally throughout the characters' speech, they're not really swear words anymore. Anyway, I'm hoping to gather some ideas for religious almost-swear words along the lines of Sweet bejesus! and Christ on a bike! for tackling gems such as Saint-ciboire de câlisse! For context, think middle-aged, salt-crusted fisherman propping up the bar at the pub on the docks. Thanks in advance for any ideas."
Click "Leave a Comment" to read the responses
By Nicky Harman, May 24, '17
I'm running a translation workshop at Baptist University in Hong Kong on Tuesday 20th June 2017. We'll be working on a short piece of text from Jia Pingwa's novel 《高兴》. The event is free but please register by Monday 5th June to receive the text. Contact: cpw@hkbu.edu.hk and put Translation Workshop in the subject line.
By Nicky Harman, March 27, '17
Literary Translation in Practice 26th - 30th June 2017, City University London
Are you a practising professional or a newcomer to the art of translation?
Develop your translation skills under the guidance of top professionals at a central London campus.
An immersion course in literary translation into English across genres - including selections from fiction. poetry, history, essays, journalism, travel and academic writing - taught by leading literary translators and senior academics, with plenty of opportunities for networking.
• Arabic - Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
• Chinese - Nicky Harman
• French - Trista Selous and Frank Wynne
• German - Shaun Whiteside
• Italian - Howard Curtis
•Japanese-Angus Turvill
• Polish - Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• Portuguese - Daniel Hahn
• Russian - Robert Chandler
• Spanish - Peter Bush
• Swedish - Kevin Halliwell
Evening programme (attendance free): French Translation Slam with Frank Wynne and Ros Schwartz; Keynote Lecture Who Dares Wins by Professor Gabriel Josipovici; Author/translator Daniel Hahn on Translation and Children's Books and a buffet supper at local gastro pub sponsored by Europe House with a talk by Paul Kaye, Europe House Languages Officer.
Full fee: £520. Bursaries available.
Directors Amanda Hopkinson (Visiting Professor in Literary Translation. City, University of London) and French literary translator Ros Schwartz
Please note: All translation is into English and English needs to be your language of habitual use. All evening and lunchtime events are free and attendance is voluntary.
The organisers reserve the right to cancel a workshop that does not recruit to the required minimum number of participants. Any applicants for these groups will be notified with a minimum six weeks' notice.
By Nicky Harman, February 16, '17
Many libraries stock both books and films – a good film can encourage people to read the book, and vice versa, and it can be very interesting to compare a book with its film, to identify the changes and to understand the reasons behind them. For this blog, I have selected five Chinese novels or novellas available in English translation, that have been turned into films for international audiences. The films are of books by Geling YAN, ZHANG Ling and JIA Pingwa, and I have been lucky enough to translate one book by each of them.
By Nicky Harman, February 15, '17
Everything you wanted to know about us and Chinese-to-English translation! "Spotlight on: Paper Republic: Interview discussing the importance of high quality translators" Our blog on the International Literature Showcase
By Nicky Harman, February 9, '17
Surrealist fiction, as exemplified by Franz Kafka and his Kafkaesque absurdities, feels like a very western phenomenon. But it is also a kind of story-telling that some excellent Chinese writers have taken to and given a style and a twist all of their own. Yesterday, I looked at the stories of Dorothy Tse, from Hong Kong. In my second blog on surreal story-tellers in China, I’m writing about Sun Yisheng, one of a small number of independent-minded young authors who have experimented with new styles and stories far removed from the literary realism pervasive in mainland China.
By Nicky Harman, February 8, '17
Surrealist fiction, as exemplified by Franz Kafka and his Kafkaesque absurdities, feels like a very western phenomenon. But it is also a kind of story-telling that some excellent Chinese writers have taken to and given a style and a twist all of their own. Blair Hurley has a nice definition in her writer’s blog: ‘The most chilling or ominous surreal stories are where everything seems normal — until it gradually becomes clear that something is wrong, something is inescapable out of your character’s control.’ In a two-part blog, today and tomorrow, I’ll look at Dorothy Tse and Sun Yisheng, two contemporary Chinese writers who manage that feeling of ‘wrong-ness’, that juxtaposition of the normal and the weird, to perfection. In other ways, however, they are very different from each other and from classic western surreal writing.
By Nicky Harman, January 26, '17
The 2016 Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation was presented last night to our very own Helen Wang for her translation of Cao Wenxuan's Bronze and Sunflower. Celebrations and congratulations! More news and reviews to follow.
