Vacancy

Notes

The poem by an influential Chinese woman writer, is a playful take on the heart as an open place for rental, either for love or for pain. There are references in it to ideas peculiar to Chinese culture and tradition, and the translation workshop focused on understanding how to render these in English without losing too much. One of them is the idea of a lunar month and the importance of the full moon on the fifteenth. The guide translation by Christina Ng helped situate the work in a familiar space. The presence of the guide translator at the workshop was also helpful in keeping us within the author’s intended parameters. In the end, the result is a work that keeps a lot of the sublimity of the original, while presenting something new and delightful.

Notes on Translation by Kọ́lá Tubosun