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February 2016: Translation Competition

Li Jingrui1This month we're focusing on our 2nd Bai Meigui Translation Competition, and bringing you the competition text, by Li Jingrui 李静睿. Our first competition, in 2015, attracted a large number of outstanding entries, and we're hoping to see more this year!

Last year our text was a short story by Dorothy Tse. This year we're trying something different, and asking you to translate a non-fiction piece. Li Jingrui was our featured author in November, so you can read her story, 'Missing', here, translated by Helen Wang. And we're delighted that Helen, alongside translator Nicky Harman, and translator and editor of Pathlight magazine Dave Haysom, will make up our competition judging panel.

The deadline is midnight (UK time) 9th March, 2016 and entry is free and open to all. Our first prize is a bursary to the 'Translate in the City' summer school at City University, London, 11th-15th July, 2016. Please see our competition page for more details!

The competition is run in partnership with READ PAPER REPUBLIC. They're publishing a Chinese short story in English every week, so head over there to be inspired by some more fantastic translations!

About Li Jingrui

Li Jingrui was a journalist for eight years, reporting on legal affairs in China. She resigned in 2012 and turned to other forms of writing, including her own column in the Chinese edition of The Wall Street Journal. She now mostly concentrates on writing fiction. She has published a collection of short stories Tales of a Small Town, also a novelSmall Town Girl, in which she tries to explore human feelings and fate, without steering clear of sensitive subjects. Her stories may be about the everyday lives of ordinary people in a small town in Sichuan, or about students exiled in New York after Tian’anmen.

(Bio from Paper Republic)