Reading Asia: Translating makes me feel like an actor carrying out research for the different roles I inhabit, says Singaporean author Jeremy Tiang | Metaglossia: The Translation World | Scoop.it

In an interview with Sohini Basak for The Hindu, Singaporean writer and translator Jeremy Tiang talks about his process of translating literature from the Asian global south

Published - July 19, 2024 12:43 pm IST

Jeremy Tiang. Photo: Special Arrnagement

In this monthly column, writer Sohini Basak sets out to interview contemporary writers from Asia to understand the nuances of cultural practices, power hierarchies, literary lineages, gender norms, all the while asking the question: Is there an Asian way of thinking? The hope for the column is to not only celebrate, but also sharpen our understanding of the countries geographically closest to us, and heighten our collective curiosities about the shared colonial histories, mythologies, sentimentalities and anxieties. Here’s an excerpt from her interview with writer Jeremy Tiang:

For the final part of the Reading Asia series, we speak to Jeremy Tiang. A novelist, short fiction writer, playwright and literary translator, Tiang’s works have received the Singapore Literature Prize, been nominated for the International Booker Prize, and they are known as a champion for literary translators across the globe. I am always amazed at the geopolitical and historical range that one translator’s work can offer to a reader and Tiang’s gift to us is wide-ranging: via his translations, we can go from Taiwan (Faraway: a novel by Lo Yi-Chin or Islands of Silence by Su Wei-chen) to 1950s Malaya (Unrest by Yeng Pway Ngon), from Hong Kong (The Borrowed by Chan Ho-kei) to post-Cultural Revolution Beijing (The Wedding Party by Liu Xinwu, Nth Building by Zou Jingzhi), meet Singaporean diaspora (Death by Perfume by You Jin), and even slip into the territories that exist between cities and dreams (Rouge Street by Shuang Xuetao or The City of Sand by Tianxia Bachang)...