May 2021: Yang Shuang-Zi 楊双子 and the Bai Meigui Translation Competition

This month we're delighted to feature the winning entry in our 7th Bai Meigui Translation Competition as part of our bookclub. The text for this year’s competition was a challenging extract from a work by author Yang Shuang-Zi 楊双子, and our judging panel of scholars and translators Susan Wan Dolling, Mike Fu, and Darryl Sterk had the difficult task of choosing a winner from the very high standard of entries.

The overall winner was Francesca Jordan. The judging panel felt that her translation really stood out, but they also gave honourable mentions to entries by Stella Jiayue Zhu, Will Jones and Lucy Craig-McQuaide. You can see our Competition page for more details, and comments from the judges.

The original text can be found here, and Francesca's translation is here. (The text chosen from the competition is an excerpt from a longer novella). We'd like to thank the author for giving us permission to use her work.

About the author:

Shuang-Zi Yang is a novelist, a researcher on popular literature and subculture in Taiwan. Her creative works include Yuri ('girl's love') fiction, as well as popular and historical novels. Her pen-name 'Shuang-Zi' is taken from the fact that this conveys the meaning of 'twins' in Japanese, and she and her twin sister used to use this name as their pseudonym.

She has received creative support from Taiwan's National Culture and Arts Foundation, and the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. Blooming Island and Blooming Season are her recent works and she is the co-author of the novel Legends of the Gorgeous Island: Key. She's currently devoting herself to writing historical novels set in Taiwan during the Japanese rule.

Bio from the Association of Taiwan Literature

This year's translation competition is part of our Taiwan focus for 2021, with support from Spotlight Taiwan.