Beyond invisibility: Amplifying the work of translators as changemakers

Abstract:

In this talk, Chinese Canadian writer, translator, and editor Yilin Wang will share her journey as a translator, from how she first became interested in literary translation to her experience translating short fiction, poetry, a picture book, and a graphic novel to how she finished and sold her first book-length poetry translation project, The Lantern and the Night Moths (forthcoming with Invisible Publishing, 2024). She will share tips for aspiring translators of fiction and poetry, advice for working with the publishing industry, and speak to the importance of translators as changemakers. She will discuss her work pushing to improve working conditions for translators in the industry, including her recent experience with the British Museum's use of her work without permission or credit (which they later finally rectified). With the support of many fellow translators and others, she pushed the British Museum to admit that they never had a clearance policy for working with translations in the past and commit to creating one, which has set an international precedent for translations to be handled with more care in the future.

Speaker:

Yilin Wang 王艺霖 (she/they) is a writer, a poet, and Chinese-English translator. She is the editor and translator of The Lantern and Night Moths, a book of translated poetry and essays on translation forthcoming with Invisible Publishing, 2024. Her translations have appeared in POETRY, Guernica, Room, Asymptote, Samovar, The Common, LA Review of Books’ “China Channel,”  the anthology The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories (TorDotCom 2022), and elsewhere. Her essays on translation and Sinophone literature have appeared in Words Without Borders, SFWA's Bulletin, and carte blanche. She has received an ALTA Virtual Travel Fellowship and the Marian Hebb Research Grant from Access Copyright Foundation for her translations of Qiu Jin’s poetry, as well as received an Honorable Mention in the poetry magazine of Canada's National Magazine Awards for her own writing. Yilin has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC.

A networking event across UQ MATI and Museum Studies cohorts will be held in the GCI Atrium after the presentation.