In this episode of The Writing Life, writer and translator Daniel Hahn speaks with three former virtual residents Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar, Sim Wai-chew and Tse Hao Guang about the quirks of virtual residencies, and how their expectations compared to reality.
We were delighted to host them from June to December 2023, in a virtual residency generously supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore.
In this episode, they discuss the projects they were working on during their residencies with us, how they found inspiration when writing as though they were in Norwich UNESCO City of Literature, and their lives and careers as translators. They also touch on the blogs they wrote for our Writing Hub, which you can read here.
Edited by Omni Mix
Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar has translated children’s picture books, fiction and poetry since 2017. She won the Inaugural MASTERA Translation Prize for Poetry in 2019 and has conducted translation workshops for students. She is also an editorial consultant and the author of eight children’s picture books. In 2017, her short stories won the first and second prizes at the Golden Point Award (Malay language category), organised by the National Art Council of Singapore. She has been a moderator and speaker at events such as the Singapore Writers Festival and the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.
Wai-chew Sim obtained his BA (Honours) from the University of East Anglia and his PhD from the University of Warwick. His work has appeared in Textual Practice, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, and CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. His English translation of Singapore writer Joo-Ming Chia’s sinophone novel, Exile or Pursuit [放逐与追逐] was published by Balestier Press in 2019. Website
Tse Hao Guang (謝皓光) is the author of The International Left-Hand Calligraphy Association (Tinfish Press, 2023) and Deeds of Light (Math Paper Press, 2015), the latter shortlisted for the 2016 Singapore Literature Prize. He edits or has edited the collaborative e-journal OF ZOOS; UnFree Verse (Ethos Books, 2017), the anthology of Singapore poetry in received and nonce forms; literary food writing anthology Food Republic (Landmark Books, 2020); and the new edition of Windham-Campbell prize-winning poet Wong May’s 1969 debut, A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals (Ethos Books, 2023). He is a 2016 fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and the 2018 National Writer-in-Residence at Nanyang Technological University. Poems and essays appear in Poetry, Poem-a-Day, The Yale Review, Poetry Northwest, Entropy and elsewhere. Website
Image (c) Daryl Qilin Yam
