Incoming Professor Jeremy Tiang Wins PEN Translates Award

Jeremy Tiang, who will join School of the Arts Faculty as an adjunct professor in Fall 2021, has won a PEN Translates award from English Pen for his translation from the Chinese of Cocoon (World Editions) by Zhang Yueran.

The twelve books selected for PEN Translates awards represent eleven different countries and eleven languages, and were chosen "on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to UK bibliodiversity." 

According to Will Forrester, Translation and International Manager at English PEN, "These twelve books are significant works of literature. They represent some of the most exciting literature in translation arriving into the UK market. Remarkable in variety of language, voice, form, subject, and geography, they are united in being outstanding pieces of writing and translating...English PEN is thrilled to be helping these books get to readers, in a moment in which exceptional, internationalist and diverse literature is vital." 

Cocoon follows Li Jiaxi and Cheng Gong—two young people born in the 1980s—who seek to understand the experiences of their parents and grandparents in one of the most turbulent periods in recent Chinese history. Two unhappy people turned amateur detectives, they slowly begin to understand the terrible fate of their grandfathers and the "tragedy [that] lurks behind the glorious facade of the present." 

The PEN Translates awards will fund up to 75% of translation costs for each project and will ensure that all winning translators are both acknowledged and properly paid for their work. 

Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright and literary translator from Chinese. His translations include novels by Yeng Pway Ngon, Yan Ge, Lo Yi-Chin, Zhang Yueran, Shuang Xuetao, Geling Yan, Chan Ho-Kei and Li Er, as well as plays by Chen Si'an, Wei Yu-Chia, Quah Sy Ren and Han Lao Da. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. Tiang is originally from Singapore, and now lives in Flushing, Queens.