Non-Fiction Translation Fellowship

To allow true stories of the world reach a more global audience - this is the original motivation of why we wished to create a non-fiction translation fellowship.

 

We believe the role of the translator for non-fiction is essential and particular, not reducible to machine translation, and we wish to nurture and give space for a new generation of translators.

 

Though one might say that all writing is to some extent fictive, a hallmark of non-fiction writing is its adherence to an idea of truth; it demands that the writer – be it a journalist, an ethnographer, a historian, a family chronicler – must fully enter into the context of that truth, the society and the lives lived, and then to be able to find a language to transform that truth into narrative. What gives a piece of non-fiction writing its power is its ability to open readers to the particular space of the chronicler’s world, despite not being there themselves.

 

Given that this sense of “being there” - as conveyed by the author - is so essential to non-fiction writing in all genres and modalities - how might we then reconvey that sense of “being there,” through to yet another cultural and linguistic context? Unlike a fictional text that might have the latitude to create an entirely imagined world, non-fiction writing constructs its ‘storyworld’ from bricks and mortar of the world around us; so once a piece of writing entirely detaches from its particular linguistic, geographic, and cultural context, it loses much of what gives the original work its anchoring and significance. In that sense, the act of translating non-fiction functions as yet another rewriting - and the translator needs to travel via the language of the author’s piece back to the original world of the story, and then convey it anew to yet another context and yet another readership. In other words, the labor of translation is not limited to the transference of language, but also involves analysis, elaboration, and recontextualization. Like the author, a translator must also “be there” - on the scene, and in the world.

 

Given the central role that translation has been afforded in the project of modernization and nation-building from the late Qing Dynasty onwards, there has been a long and rich history of non-fiction translation from western languages into Chinese. Nevertheless, the reverse has not been true. Compared to the quality and quantity of literary works of translation from Sinophone languages, non-fiction translation of Chinese into English has been relatively neglected.

 

This is the motivation for us to create this fellowship. We are eager to share the truly excellent new non-fiction writing that we have been privileged to showcase these past years through the Frontline Awards. And more importantly, we want to seek out, accompany, and support a new generation of translators of non-fiction, who will convey and transform these words, stories, and worlds to new readers and writers.