Poets & Writers Theater

Madhu Kaza and Jeremy Tiang speak about their “slow, long fall into translation” and how writing and literary translation are forms of encounter in this conversation for the Literary Translation Clinic series, presented by the Center for Fiction and Cedilla & Co.

“It’s about translating the spirit of the book so you’re taking a story and bringing it across borders—not just into a different language, but a different cultural context.” Jeremy Tiang discusses the “often invisible” contributions of literary translators in this video from the 2019 London Book Fair. Tiang’s essay “The Art of Translation: Many Englishes, Many Chineses” appears in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Without knowing where we came from and how we got here, how can we possibly understand where we are and come to grips with where we go next?” Jeremy Tiang describes the history and research involved in writing his debut novel, State of Emergency (Epigram Books, 2017), which explores the leftist movements of Singapore and Malaysia through the members of one family.