Jeremy Tiang discusses the process of translating the late Yeng Pway Ngon's Unrest, and what it means to be a Singaporean Chinese translator working within his own community and culture. What happens to the metaphor of translation as a 'bridge' when both ends of the bridge are located in the same place? Can the translator truly be neutral, or should we pay more attention to who is doing the translating?
Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright and translator from Chinese. His translations include novels by Yeng Pway Ngon, Su Wei-Chen, Yan Ge, Zhang Yueran, Lo Yi-Chin, Chan Ho-Kei and Li Er. His plays include Salesman之死, A Dream of Red Pavilions, and translations of scripts by Chen Si’an, Wei Yu-Chia, Quah Sy Ren and others. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. He lives in Flushing, Queens, and is a member of the translation collective Cedilla & Co.
