Who’s coming to the London Bookfair?
By Helen Wang, March 10, '12
The British Council has just announced its programme of events featuring Chinese authors. See here for details.
Helen Wang
wikipedia | worldcat | academia |
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
Read Now: On Paper Republic
| 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 |
Read Now: Around the Web
Book Publications
All Translations
Short story (25)
- From the Heart
- A Very Special Pigeon
- Into Parting Arms
- Brand New World (with Nicky Harman)
- Xie Bomao R.I.P.
- Let Us Talk About Something Else
- Mad about Orchids
- Sunshine in Winter (with Michelle Deeter, Killiana Liu and Juliet Vine)
- Police Python 357
- Just You Wait
- Ah Fang's Lamp
- Missing
- Velvet
- Ying Yang Alley
- Huiwa's Stand (Huiwa's Stand)
- Small Town
- The Glamour Zoo
- Dragonworld
- Dragon Menu
- Hai Shan Swimming Pool
- Dragonworld
- Galloping Horses
- Mistakes
- One Kind of Reality
- Dragon Menu
Novella (1)
Novel (1)
- Dinner for Six (with Nicky Harman)
Essay (7)
Children's book (30)
- The Village Has Changed
- The Grass House
- Practising goodbye
- Yulu's Linen
- Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean
- Sail
- Leilong's Too Long
- Lessons in Happiness: the story of Zhan Ni and Yunqi
- Tan Hou and the Double Sixth
- The Ventriloquist's Daughter
- Express Delivery from Dinosaur World
- Little Rabbit's Questions
- An's Seed
- Flame
- Cee Cee
- I am Hua Mulan
- Myna Bird as Free as a Cloud
- The Mask that Loved to Count
- Jackal and Wolf
- Leilong the Library Bus
- Playing with Lanterns
- Dragonfly Eyes
- Levin the cat
- A Journey of 9000 Millimetres
- Grandpa's 14 Games
- The Empty Lunchbox
- Mum is Hiding
- Bibbit Jumps
- Bronze and Sunflower
- Pai Hua Zi and the Clever Girl
Excerpt (5)
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.
Posts
Podcasts of Chinese stories and poems
By Helen Wang, March 9, '12
The recent podcasts of Han Dong’s A Loud Noise (poem) and Deer Park (short story) prompted me to look for more. I found a few things – see below. It would be great to know if there are any good websites out there with podcasts of stories read in Chinese?
Shanghai International Literary Festival, 2-18 March 2012
By Helen Wang, March 8, '12
M-on-the-Bund 米氏西餐厅
Speakers include:
- Geremie R. Barmé: West Lake: A World Made by Literature and Politics
- Ouyang Yu: Speaking English, Thinking Chinese and Living Australian. Living and writing between different worlds and languages
- Shan Sa: The Art of Literature. With the artist, poet and novelist (The Girl Who Played Go)
- Xu Xi: Creative “I”: A Writing Workshop in Narrative Prose (creative non-fiction & fiction)
- Amy Tan: On Shanghai, Life & Writing
- Xu Xi, Ovidia Yu: The New Asian Character. Addressing the Asian transnational experience. Moderated by Nury Vittach
- Li Er: The Magician of 1919. One of China’s most influential contemporary fiction writers on dreams, imagination and history
- Ovidia Yu: Chinese Mouth, English Words. The author of Chinese New Year Murders on why it feels strange yet natural to write in English about being Chinese
Gao Xingjian’s "Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of Gods" at the Hong Kong Festival
By Helen Wang, March 7, '12
The Hong Kong Festival has commissioned Gao Xingjian and theatre director Li Zhaohua [LIN Zhaohua, thanks btr] to create a new production of Gao’s "Of Mountains and Seas: A Tragicomedy of Gods" based on the Shanhaijing (山海经). It is the first time they have worked together in 30 years. In the 1980s Lin produced three of Gao’s plays: Absolute Signal, Bus Stop and Wild Man. For more info...