[Update on 13 June 2023: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the following book talk will be postponed until further notice. Thank you for your interest and we apologise for the inconvenience that might have caused.]
Book Talk
Contemporary Hong Kong Literature in Translation: Conversation with Dorothy Tse & James Shea
Thursday, 15 June 2023
15:00 – 16:00 PDT
Dodson Room (302), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC Library, 1961 East Mall, Vancouver
The event is free and open to all.
RSVP here.
Join authors and co-translators Dorothy Tse and James Shea as they discuss contemporary Hong Kong literature in translation, including Moving a Stone: Selected Poems of Yam Gong, their co-translation of poems by the Hong Kong poet Yam Gong. Using shifting tonal registers, Yam Gong refashions borrowed language, including English song lyrics, Cantonese slang, Chinese folk stories, news reports, and prayers. Dorothy Tse will also discuss her debut novel Owlish, forthcoming in English translation by Natascha Bruce from Graywolf Press. The novel explores the relationship between a professor and a music box ballerina who tantalizingly springs to life.
Dorothy Tse is the author of the novel Owlish and several short story collections, and she has received the Hong Kong Book Prize, Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature, and Taiwan’s Unitas New Fiction Writers’ Award. Her book Snow and Shadow (translated by Nicky Harman) was longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. Tse is co-translator of Moving a Stone: Selected Poems of Yam Gong and co-founder of the literary journal Fleurs des Lettres.
James Shea is the author of two poetry collections, The Lost Novel and Star in the Eye, and co-translator of Moving a Stone: Selected Poems of Yam Gong. He is co-editor of The Routledge Global Haiku Reader, forthcoming in 2023. Recipient of grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and National Endowment for the Arts, he is the director of the Creative and Professional Writing Program at Hong Kong Baptist University.
The conversation is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative, University of British Columbia; and is generously co-sponsored by: Department of Asian Studies, Department of History, Centre for Chinese Research, Department of Theatre and Film, Public Humanities Hub, and the School of Social Work.
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