Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 17h

Yan Lianke may not be a Nobel laureate (yet!!) but he's the hedgehog of my heart 🦔 🦔

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/10...

Notes from a Hedgehog by Yan Lianke

October 7, 2025 – “Since turning sixty, I’ve thought about death every single day.”

www.theparisreview.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 9d

Philadelphia: worldeditions.org/event/jeremy...

Pittsburgh: cityofasylum.org/litfest-2025/

Vancouver: writersfest.bc.ca/2025-festiva...

Toronto: festivalofauthors.ca/festival-202...

17 Oct, 5pm
Making Worlds, Philadelphia
19 Oct, 2.30pm
City of Asylum, Pittsburgh
24-26 Oct
Vancouver Writers Fest
31 Oct-2 Nov
Toronto International
Festival of Authors

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 12d

"She held nothing back, writing with such force that it felt as if she were ripping through the paper. When I began writing fiction, I felt that only by tearing the paper could I leave evidence that I had existed in this world."
~Zhang Yueran on Eileen Chang

www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/09...

What You Know Most Deeply: On Eileen Chang’s Little Reunions by Zhang Yueran

September 26, 2025 – “ ‘Little Reunions ought to be burned,’ Eileen Chang wrote to her friend and literary executor, Stephen Soong, in 1976, the year she finished what would be her last novel.”

www.theparisreview.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 12d

new translator aspiration just dropped

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Michael Emmerich, a professor of Japanese literature at U.C.L.A. and a translator of the eleventh-century novel “The Tale of Genji,” co-authored the LifeWear messaging for Uniqlo. He admitted that it was deliberately enigmatic, saying that he wanted customers to “stop a moment and engage with language.”

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

The Paris Review @parisreview.bsky.social · 13d

“Granny Liu squats by the grave and says, ‘Look, say you’re right and women do live longer, then fine—you can die first, but you’re making lunch tomorrow.’ “

From “Plants, Stones, Dirt, and Sky” by Yan Lianke, translated by @jeremytiang.bsky.social. buff.ly/RtunfjN

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 12d

We’re Doing This Because . . .

We believe our power is stronger as a collective than it is as individuals.

You don’t have to join NWU to attend the drop-ins, but we hope you will, and are happy to talk to you about why we think the union is the future.

The more of us who join, alongside other writers, editors, and media creatives, the greater our chances of winning the working conditions we want and deserve!

Translators Organizing Committee | translators@nwu.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Sep 4

3 days left to apply!

Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 15

applications now open for the 2025 Translating Taiwan Literature workshop, a (free!) literary translaltion workshop by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Tainan/ Taitung

apply by Sept 7

event.culture.tw/mocweb/reg/N...

Call for emerging translators: A symphony of island and literature, 2025 workshop for translating Taiwan literature. Intensive and immersive training program for emerging translators of Taiwan literature into English, with Jeremy Tiang as mentor, joined by writers from Taiwan, senior translators, scholars, publishing representatives and curators from the Czech republic, Japan, Poland, South Korea and the UK. 20 participants will be selected. Anyone aged 18 or over, including non-Taiwanese citizens, may apply. Organizer will cover courses, accommodation, insurance and partial transportaiton costs during the workshop. Apply by Sept 7

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

American Literary Translators Association @littranslate.bsky.social · Sep 2

📣 The 2026 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program submission portals are open!

The ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program is designed to establish and facilitate a close working relationship between an experienced translator and an emerging translator.

Apply by 11/30: buff.ly/cpduT69

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Sep 1

Thanks, Brian!

Just realised there's a typo in the transcript (I actually said "read widely") but I'm not going to correct it because I like the idea of translators reading wisely

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · Aug 18

“How does a communist guerilla in one of the Cold War’s forgotten battlefields regain his footing at the end of history?” Darren Wan reviews "Delicious Hunger" by Hai Fan and "State of Emergency" by Jeremy Tiang. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/emergency-unending/

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 29

State of Emergency + Delicious Hunger reviewed in LARB by Darren Wan

lareviewofbooks.org/article/emer...

Emergency Unending | Los Angeles Review of Books

Darren Wan reviews Hai Fan’s “Delicious Hunger,” translated by Jeremy Tiang, as well as Tiang’s own novel, “State of Emergency.”

lareviewofbooks.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 26

Shuang Xuetao's HUNTER in The Guardian

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

Hunter by Shuang Xuetao, translated by Jeremy Tiang (Granta, £12.99)
Set largely in the Chinese cities of Beijing and Shenyang, these diverse stories share a blend of urban grittiness and surreal strangeness. In one, a man accompanies his father in an ambulance to hospital, but finds everyone else – including the driver – is asleep. In another, a man goes from stalking women to shooting squirrels; elsewhere, we encounter a remake of The Tempest, and a man who claims to be the last survivor from another planet. Motifs recur – actors, parents, people needing urgently to pee – bringing a sense of unity, however warped. The frequent surprises in these stories, which are darkly charming and hard to shake off, suggest Xuetao may have followed the advice of one of his own characters on writing: “Just sit there, smack your head and let the words flow out.”

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

National Writers Union @nwu.org · Aug 25

If you're a translator pissed off about the impacts of AI, our members in the NWU Translators Organizing Committee are building collective power among literary translators as workers whose creative labor deserves to be materially valued. Check them out! nwu.org/chapters/toc

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · Aug 21

Since 2023, translators and interpreters have seen work dry up, rates plummet and their jobs reduced to editing AI-generated output. Some are leaving the field, others are considering bankruptcy. All despite any major upgrade in translation quality.

This is how AI is killing translation work:

AI Killed My Job: Translators

Few industries have been hit by AI as hard as translation. Rates are plummeting. Work is drying up. Translators are considering abandoning the field, or bankruptcy. These are their stories.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 20

"In recent years, East Asian authors have begun to break the stranglehold that European writers have previously exerted over translated literature... Strikingly, however, Chinese authors have mostly been absent from this cultural conversation."

www.jezebel.com/women-seated...

‘Women, Seated’ Shows How Precarity, Wealth, and ‘Having It All’ Are Not Just American Problems

Zhang Yueran’s new novel is part of a wave of Asian authors breaking the dominance of Europe in translated literature in the U.S., while dissecting gender and class in their respective societies.

www.jezebel.com

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 19

“I’ve always been interested in writing about nannies, perhaps because their existence is a study in contrasts.”
～Zhang Yueran

lithub.com/a-study-in-c...

A Study in Constrasts: On Nannying and Implicit Trust

Translated by Jeremy Tiang. I’ve always been interested in writing about nannies, perhaps because their existence is a study in contrasts. In China, a nanny’s life is difficult: usually she gets ma…

lithub.com

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 19

"For a long time, the perception of Chinese literature among Western readers has been quite fixed. It's often seen as either heavily influenced by Chinese culture, or focused on people living rural, impoverished lives. Which has nothing to do with our lives today."

www.npr.org/2025/08/15/n...

Chinese literature is tough to find in English. One editor hopes to change that

The novel Women Seated is a thriller about a nanny for a rich family and a kidnapping gone awry. It's the first in a new effort to redefine the types of Chinese literature get translated into English.

www.npr.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 15

applications now open for the 2025 Translating Taiwan Literature workshop, a (free!) literary translaltion workshop by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Tainan/ Taitung

apply by Sept 7

event.culture.tw/mocweb/reg/N...

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

Alex Zucker @alexzucker.bsky.social · Aug 12

🥳🥳🥳

Plus, Nov 5 at Sky Bar:

Come drink and dish with the Translators Organizing Committee, a division of the @nwu.org and the United States’ first ever literary translators’ union! Open to members, prospective members, and the solidarity-inclined.

literarytranslators.org/event/nwupre...

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

Alex Zucker @alexzucker.bsky.social · Aug 12

✨ PRESENTING the @nwu.org Translators Organizing Committee at #ALTA48

✊ Nov 6: Don’t Mourn, Organize! @nwu.org Solidarity Drop-in

✊ Nov 7&8: Rate-sharing Edit-a-thons

✊ Nov 8: Envisioning the Perfect Contract: What to Know & Where to Learn More

*better working conditions 4 literary translators*

American Literary Translators Association @littranslate.bsky.social · Aug 12

🎉 It's here! The schedule-at-a-glance for our upcoming conference, ALTA48: Visions and Versions, which will be held November 5-8 in Tucson, AZ, is LIVE!

Check it out now to see the panels, workshops, readings, events and more we have lined up for you in Tucson this November! buff.ly/6KmX2u2

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Reposted by Jeremy Tiang

Riverhead Books @riverheadbooks.bsky.social · Aug 12

“It’s time to get excited about reading Chinese fiction, and Zhang Yueran and @jeremytiang.bsky.social are two of the biggest reasons why.” @readbookpage.bsky.social 🌟

Get your copy of this “vivid, smart, suspenseful” thriller (Mo Yan) + head to Yu & Me's NYC book launch of WOMEN, SEATED tonight!

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 8

“I need the wolves to respond and know that, hey, humans are bad”

variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver Fighting in ‘Marriage Story’ Is Being Used by the USDA to Scare Off Wolves and Save Cattle: ‘They Need to Know Humans Are Bad’

Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver fighting in 'Marriage Story' is being used by farmers to scare off wolves and save livestock.

variety.com

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 7

There'll be a UK edition next year!

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 5

next week

www.yuandmebooks.com/products/boo...

Yu & Me books presents Women Seated by Zhang Yueran, translated by Jeremy Tiang. Book launch with Jeremy Tiang, Han Zhang and Weike Wang on Aug 12 2025, 7-8pm, 44 Mulberry Street

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 5

"Do maintain a robust social media presence; aim to post between 1 and 1,000 times a year."

Lara Vergnaud tells it like it is

wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

A Primer on Pitching Translations - Words Without Borders

Award-winning translator Lara Vergnaud offers a tongue-in-cheek guide for translators in search of a publisher.

wordswithoutborders.org

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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · Aug 3

pre-orders now open for the next issue of Mynah 🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛

www.indiegogo.com/projects/myn...

Mynah Mag 5: Issue 5 of Singapore's Untold Stories

Smart, surprising, deeply reported. Help make Mynah #5 a reality! | Check out 'Mynah Mag 5: Issue 5 of Singapore's Untold Stories' on Indiegogo.

www.indiegogo.com

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