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Helen Wang is a UK-based translator and co-founder of Chinese Books for Young Readers (2016-). She works collaboratively with Paper Republic, the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, World Kid Lit, and Global Literature in Libraries Initiative. She was active on Twitter: China Fiction Book Club, with Nicky Harman (2012-2025); Translated World (2013-2025).
Awards:
2017 Marsh Award for Literature in Translation for her translation of Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan
2017 Chen Bochui Special Contribution Award, for translation and increasing visibility of Chinese children's books
2025 Shenzhen Reading Month's Translator of the Year
Other publications
The Music of Ink at the British Museum (edited volume featuring Yang Lian, Romesh Gunesekera, Denis Brown, Qu Lei Lei, Rohan de Saram, Zeng Laide and Wang Tao), Saffron Books, London, 2012. Info here
Is Gao Xingjian’s play Chezhan merely a blind worship of modern Western plays as the critic He Wen claims? How far can Chezhan be compared with Beckett’s Waiting for Godot?, Bulletin of the British Association for Chinese Studies, 1986, pp. 83-89. Available here
Interviews and short pieces
Interview, with Julie Sullivan, in Words and Pictures (SCBWI), 7 Oct 2018.
Interview, with Nanette McGuinness, in SCBWI, The Blog, 7 Sept 2017.
Interview, with Eric Abrahamsen, for Paper Republic, April 2016. in English and in Chinese
Interview, with Daniel Hahn, in Books for Keeps.
On "Bronze and Sunflower" in LARB China Blog, 13 April 2016
Translating Children's Books - a short piece for Books from Taiwan (2015)
Learning about Chinese children's books - interview with Zoe Toft for Playing by the Book, 27 April 2015
Bronze and Sunflower - Ann Morgan's Book of the Month, April 2015
Guest Interview: Helen Wang on Children's Book Translation, interviewed by Avery Fischer Udagawa for Cynthia Leitich Smith's "Cynsations" blog, 26 May 2015
Review by Nicky Harman of Bronze and Sunflower in Tribune 6 March 2015
| Small Town | by Li Jingrui | October 11, 2018 |
| Self-Portrait | by Zhang Xinxin | April 21, 2016 |
| Ying Yang Alley | by Fan Xiaoqing | April 14, 2016 |
| Sunshine in Winter | by Shi Kang tr. Michelle Deeter, Killiana Liu, Juliet Vine and Helen Wang | January 14, 2016 |
| A Second Pregnancy, 1980 | by Lu Min | November 03, 2015 |
| Xie Bomao R.I.P. | by Lu Min | October 29, 2015 |
| Crows | by Cao Wenxuan | September 24, 2015 |
| Missing | by Li Jingrui | August 06, 2015 |
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 Helen Wang, March 15, '12
Paul Mason is not the only senior person at the BBC who is writing fiction. Jill McGivering, senior foreign news correspondent, has been writing novels too: The Last Kestrel and Far From My Father's House.
In her review of Mason's Rare Earth Julia Lovell writes 'Reading the passages rich in masochistic sex, you easily imagine Mason joyfully kicking free of BBC fact-checkers...'
This reminded me of something I'd seen somewhere else...
By Helen Wang, March 15, '12
Paul Mason is BBC Newsnight Economics editor. His first novel Rare Earth is set in northwest China:
"All of this is imagined, of course. 'I wrote Rare Earth,' Mason says, 'because I got tired of trying to tell the China story as fact – with so much of the political reality hidden from view, it would be easier to tell it as fiction.'"
By Helen Wang, March 15, '12
Ages ago, when I asked this question, Bruce recommended http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/bib.htm
MCLC stands for Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
This resource center contains, among other things, bibliographies of mostly English-language materials on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, art, music, and culture and is maintained by Kirk A. Denton at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, in conjunction with the journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. Send comments and suggestions for entries to denton.2@osu.edu. The Center also publishes articles (see "Publications") and book reviews (see "Book Reviews"). Clicking the MCLC logo at the top of each page will return you to this page. Join the MCLC Discussion List (see "MCLC List" below). Donate money to support MCLC and the MCLC Resource Center. MCLC is also on Facebook and Twitter.
By Helen Wang, March 14, '12
On the Revolutions: Scott Lash vs Ou Ning
12:00 pm-13:30 pm, Saturday, March 17, 2012
Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, 798 Art District, Beijing
http://en.chutzpahmagazine.com.cn/EnNewDetails.aspx?id=124
By Helen Wang, March 14, '12
Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square: The Chinese Literary Diaspora and the Politics of Global Culture by Belinda Kong
Compelling us to think about how Chinese culture, identity, and politics are being defined in the diaspora, Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square candidly addresses issues of political exile, historical trauma, global capital, and state biopower…
Read more about this book… on http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2176_reg.html
By Helen Wang, March 14, '12
National Theatre of Scotland & National Theatre of China -
First UK season of New Writing from contemporary Chinese playwrights in 2013
An international new writing project is being launched in both China and Scotland on 8th March 2012 with the aim of discovering six new Chinese writers to develop their work with the assistance of National Theatre of Scotland practitioners. Successful playwrights will have their work produced as part of Òran Mór’s A Play, a Pie and a Pint Chinese Season in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2013.
By Helen Wang, March 13, '12
From The International Herald Tribune:
Watch Your Language! (In China, They Really Do) by Mark McDonald
Scaling the wall. Buying soy sauce. Fifty cents. A mild collision. May 35. Mayor Lymph. River crab. - These words — mild, silly, inoffensive — are part of the subversive lexicon being used by Chinese bloggers to ridicule the government, poke fun at Communist Party leaders and circumvent the heavily censored Internet in China. A popular blog that tracks online political vocabulary, China Digital Times, calls them part of the “resistance discourse” on the mainland.
By Helen Wang, March 13, '12
From The New Yorker:
Working Titles: What do the most industrious people on earth read for fun? by Leslie T. Chang
What do the Chinese read in their spare time? Novels about work. The seventh volume of “The Diary of Government Official Hou Weidong” was published in July, with an initial print run of two hundred thousand copies. Zhichang xiaoshuo, or workplace novels, have topped best-seller lists in recent years. “Du Lala’s Promotion Diary,” by a corporate executive writing under the pen name Li Ke, is the story of a young woman who rises from secretary to human-resources manager at a Fortune 500 company. The books have sold five million copies...
By Helen Wang, March 13, '12
Eric Abrahamsen, writing in The International Herald Tribune:
"Last Wednesday I tried to close my bank account. I won’t pretend that the Bank of China is the most Orwellian institution in the world, but in terms of human suffering inflicted by bureaucracy, it has to make the long list..."
(with thanks to Nicky for sending this to me!)
By Helen Wang, March 12, '12
"Bringing Chinese poetry to the UK" Literary Translation Centre, London Bookfair, 18 April.
(http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/en/Sessions/243/Bringing-Chinese-Poetry-to-the-UK/)
The blurb for this session asks "How important are promotional events or readings, if at all?" If you've ever heard Brian Holton, W.N. Herbert and Yang Lian you will know the answer to this question. If you haven't, see the links below. I single out these three, because I have seen and heard them perform live and it's just not the same as reading the words on the page!
By Helen Wang, March 12, '12
It took me ages to find the Literary Translation Centre programme on the LBF website, and then it was arranged alphabetically by session title. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer schedules in chronological order, so here is an abridged version in date/time order, with the names of people. For more info on the sessions, chairs/speakers, check out the website.
By Helen Wang, March 12, '12
In a rash moment, I offered to post a new entry on Paper Republic every day until the London Bookfair. Now Nicky suggests that I come clean and say who I am and why I’m doing this!
By Helen Wang, March 11, '12
Kate Griffin has just written a piece about editing Chinese fiction for the Writers' Centre, Norwich:
“On the way back from Australia in December 2011, I spent a week in Shanghai and Beijing talking to Chinese writers, translators and editors about the editing culture in China (or lack thereof) and its impact on translation, and about support for writers. After a few days of intense conversation I gained a fascinating glimpse into the writing life in China today. All those I spoke with agreed that there is both a serious need for more professional editing as well as a shortage of experienced editors within the Chinese publishing industry…” Read the full article here
By Helen Wang, March 11, '12
The judges this year are Boyd Tonkin (The Independent), Hephzibah Anderson (writer and critic), Nick Barley (Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival), Professor Jon Cook (Director of Creative and Performing arts, University of East Anglia) and Xiaolu Guo (who was shortlisted for this prize for her novel Village of Stone). There are fifteen on the long list. The winner will be announced at the London Bookfair on Monday 16 March [sorry, this should be Monday 16 April]. See the article in The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-independent-foreign-fiction-prize-longlist-spans-a-planet-of-stories-7545606.html).
By Helen Wang, March 11, '12
“The Bookworm International Literary Festival is a unique celebration of literature and ideas in China, programming 100 events across three cities, connecting over 70 Chinese and international writers and thinkers.”
