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Translation flows in Asia: panel session at the London Book Fair 2013

Korea is the Market Focus for the London Book Fair 2014, and with the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature coming up next month it’s good that we have two Korea / Asia-related talks at the London Book Fair – this panel session with participation from Deborah Smith (@londonkoreanist) and the other a presentation from the Korean publishing industry.

Sadly, it looks as if you have to pay £30 to go to the whole fair in order to attend either of these talks, both of which are in the Earls Court exhibition centre complex.

Translation flows in Asia

16 Apr 2013, 16:45 – 17:45 Literary Translation Centre, EC2

LBF logoIn recent years we’ve seen increasing interest in new and exciting literature coming out of Asia, but much of the focus has been on writing originally in English. During this panel, we will look at what’s happening with literature written in languages other than English. Our speakers will explore the translation flows in Asia – into Asia, between various Asian countries, and out of Asia – discussing trends and key issues, as well as the role of the English language in the process.

This event will be followed by a reception, with the generous support of the Nippon Foundation.

Panelists

Kate Griffin

Job Title: International Programme Director
Company Name: The British Centre for Literary Translation / Writers Centre Norwich / The London Review of Books

About
Kate Griffin is an international literature consultant who has developed projects in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. She is International Programme Director at the British Centre for Literary Translation, and also works with Writers’ Centre Norwich and the London Review of Books. From 2005 until 2010 Kate was a judge for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She spent most of the 1990s working overseas in Belgium and Russia.

Michael Emmerich

Job Title: Translator / Teacher
Company Name: The University of California

About
Michael Emmerich teaches Japanese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the translator of a dozen or so books from Japanese, including Yasunari Kawabata’s First Snow on Fuji; Gen’ichirō Takahashi’s Sayonara Gangsters; Mari Akasaka’s Vibrator; Rieko Matsuura’s The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P; Banana Yoshimoto’s Asleep, Goodbye Tsugumi, Hardboild & Hard Luck, and The Lake (shortlisted for the MAN Asian Literary Prize); and Hiromi Kawakami’s Manazuru, for which he was awarded the 2010 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature.

Anna Holmwood

Job Title: Agent
Company Name: The Grayhawk Agency

About
Anna Holmwood is an agent at one of Asia’s leading literary agencies, The Grayhawk Agency, a young and dynamic sub-agency which has also been acting as primary agent on behalf of a very select list of Chinese writers for the last three years. Anna started the London office in 2012 to help develop this list, as well as acting as sub-agent in the Chinese language markets. She also works as a literary translator from Chinese and Swedish, having been selected for one of the first BCLT translator mentorship schemes in 2010. She co-founded the Emerging Translators Network in 2011 and was elected to the Translators Association Committee in 2012.

Alvin Pang

Job Title: Poet, Writer, Editor, Anthologist and Translator
Company Name: Freelance

About
Alvin Pang is a poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and translator. Named Singapore’s Young Artist of the Year for Literature in 2005, his poetry has been translated into over fifteen languages, and he has appeared in major festivals and anthologies worldwide. His publications include City of Rain (2003) and What Gives Us Our Names (2011). In 2012, his collection of poems When the Barbarians Arrive was published in the UK by Arc Publications. He has edited a number of anthologies, including Tumasik: Contemporary Writing from Singapore (Autumn Hill: USA, 2009). He is a founding director of The Literary Centre – a non‐profit initiative promoting interdisciplinary capacity, multilingual communication, and positive social change.

Deborah Smith

Job Title: Translator
Company Name: Freelance

About
Deborah Smith has a BA in English from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Korean Studies from SOAS. Since 2011 she has been studying for a PhD at SOAS, focusing on contemporary Korean fiction, and has also been translating literary works from Korean into English. She is the recipient of the ICF Korean Literature Translation Fellowship 2012-13, and her translation of “His First Love” by Bae Suah was published in 2012 by the Asia Literary Review. She intends to build a career introducing Korean literature to English speakers through both translation and academic work.

Links:

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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