Best New Zealand Poems go bilingual
On Tuesday 15 March, an exquisite ceremony with tea and calligraphy, and poems read in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Hunan dialect, recreated the ambience of a traditional Chinese literary gathering – to celebrate the publication of Best New Zealand Poems 2014 by Wai-te-ata Press in a ground breaking English-Chinese bilingual edition. This is the first time that the BNZP series, selected and published annually by the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), is translated in full into a foreign language.
The project, initiated by Dr Luo Hui at the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation in the School of Languages and Cultures, received generous support from the Confucius Institute and creative input from IIML and Wai-te-ata Press. Both Yujing Liang, the translator, and Ya-Wen Ho, the book designer, are postgraduate candidates in the School of Languages and Cultures.
The presence of 25 contemporary New Zealand poems in Chinese will raise the profile of New Zealand literature in China and in New Zealand’s diverse Chinese communities. A truly collaborative effort, the book exemplifies the School of Languages and Culture’s commitment to cultivating creative capital and building links across languages and cultures.
For more photos please view the image gallery.
RADIO NEW ZEALAND Voices programme about Best NZ Poems go bilingual
A tea ceremony, calligraphy painting and readings were part of the launch of the first ever bilingual publication of 25 of New Zealand’s best poets and poetry translated into Chinese.
Radio New Zealand’s Voices Programme were there at this event. Follow this link for a podcast, article and a photo gallery about this event.