We’re delighted to be a part of the University of Leeds’ Writing Chinese project, based at the University’s White Rose East Asia Centre.
Here’s Sarah Dodd, a researcher at the Centre, talking about the genesis of the project:
The Writing Chinese project came about because, firstly, there’s a lot of exciting things going on in contemporary writing in Chinese and we wanted a way to share this with a wider audience. And secondly, there’s often a tendency for academia to be quite disconnected from any kind of dialogue with writers themselves (especially new writers), or with others working in the field, such as translators, publishers, agents or reviewers. So we wanted a way to bring all these different voices together.The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, through the White Rose East Asia Centre (WREAC), and we’ve been able to organize a series of talks by writers, translators and publishers, as well as a translation masterclass, and a planned symposium this summer. And each month we choose a writer – often one who is only just beginning to be translated into English – to be part of our bookclub, with stories in both the original Chinese and in English translation featured on our website.
And this is where we come in. Part of the project is the Bai Meigui Translation Competition. This is, as the name suggests, a competition to translate a story by the award-winning Hong Kong author Bai Meigui. The winner will receive a full bursary to attend the July 2015 translation summer school Translate in the City in London and the winning story will be published in issue 14 of Structo.
The deadline for entries is the 28th of February. Full details here.