There is a common myth that poetry is often lost in translation. The renowned Chinese modernist poet and translator Dai Wangshu, however, argued that poetry is always translatable, able to transcend the barriers of language, time, and distance.
We're hosting the launch of The Lantern and the Night Moths, where poet-translator Yilin Wang brings the works of five of China’s innovative modern and contemporary poets to an English-speaking audience. Yilin’s translations of Qiu Jin 秋瑾, Zhang Qiaohui 张巧惠, Fei Ming 废名 , Xiao Xi 小西, and Dai Wangshu 戴望舒 appear alongside the original Mandarin texts and her own personal essays and commentary on the art of translation.
Many of the essays were written while Yilin Wang was fighting the British Museum over their use of her translations without permission last year, and highlight the importance of acknowledging the invisible labor of translators and the growing movement to always #NameTheTranslator.
Yilin Wang will read from her book and discuss Chinese literature in translation alongside local writers Léa Taranto and Neil Aitken. The event will be moderated by Catherine Lewis.
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Yilin Wang 王艺霖 (she/they) is a writer, a poet, and Chinese-English translator. Her writing has appeared in Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, The Malahat Review, Grain, CV2, The Ex-Puritan, The Toronto Star, The Tyee, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. She is the editor and translator of The Lantern and Night Moths. Her translations have also appeared in POETRY, Guernica, Room, Asymptote, Samovar, The Common, LA Review of Books’ “China Channel,” and the anthology The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories. She has won the Foster Poetry Prize, received an Honorable Mention in the poetry category of Canada’s National Magazine Award, been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, and been a finalist for an Aurora Award. Yilin has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and is a graduate of the 2021 Clarion West Writers Workshop.
Catherine Lewis (she/her) is a Chinese Canadian writer and poet based in Vancouver. Her debut poetry chapbook Zipless is a finalist for two Bisexual Book Awards. Her writing has been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and published in various literary journals across Canada. She is a two-time Banff Centre Literary Arts alumna.
Léa Taranto (she/her) is a Chinese Jewish Canadian writer who lives with severe OCD and comorbid disorders. A UBC MFA graduate, Writer's Studio alum, and member of PRISM International’s poetry board, she resides on the traditional, unceded land of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples. Her work has been published in: The Humber Literary Review, Grain, Vallum, and Room Magazine among others.
Neil Aitken is a Canadian writer, translator, and librettist of Chinese and Scottish-English descent. He is the author of two books of poetry: Babbage’s Dream (Sundress Publications, 2017) and The Lost Country of Sight (Anhinga Press, 2008), winner of the Philip Levine Prize; as well a poetry chapbook, Leviathan, winner of the 2016 Elgin Prize for Sci Fi Poetry. With fellow poet-translator Ming Di, he co-translated The Book of Cranes: Selected Poems of Zang Di (Vagabond Press AU, 2015) and has worked on translations of poems from many other contemporary Chinese poets. He holds both a multi-genre MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is presently pursuing a Master’s in Library & Information Science at UBC. His first full-length commissioned opera, Star Singer, a collaboration with distinguished composer Juhi Bansal, will debut in NYC in 2026.
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This event is part of Uplift Asian, a programming series at VPL designed to celebrate Asian cultures and perspectives, and push back against discrimination in our communities.