According to the Ministry of Culture, the mentees for the 2022 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program have been revealed by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Sandra Chen will be translating a collection of prose essays titled "Watching-Go (目送)" by Taiwanese author Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), who is also the former cultural minister, for "Literature from Taiwan."
Chen is a young translator from the San Francisco Bay Area who speaks English, Chinese, and French fluently. She is now a Princeton University undergraduate student pursuing a Comparative Literature focus and a certificate in Translation and Intercultural Communication.
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During the program, she will be paired with American translator Steve Bradbury, who will serve as her mentor for the next nine months. In the fall of 2022, her mentorship will end with a presentation of her translation work at the annual ALTA conference.
Lung's personal affection is explored in "Watching-Go," in which she talks of her father's death, her mother's age, and her son's growing distance. Sandra feels that the universal themes of compassion, mercy, and love may be totally transmitted to English-language readers through her translation of Lung's sensitive description of piercing honesty and extreme empathy.
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The program has aided translators of numerous languages since its launch in 2015. This year, ALTA is collaborating with the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles to find new translators of Taiwanese literature.
There are 13 rising translators from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and India among the 13 chosen.
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