Please click here to the Lab bios.

 Annex C: Biographies
TRANSLATESINGAPORE 2015
Singapore Translation Symposium
Harry
Aveling holds an adjunct appointment as a
Professor in the School of Languages, Cultures and
Linguistics at the Monash University in Australia. He
specialises in Indonesian and Malay Literature, and
Translation Studies. Prof Aveling has published widely in
translation theory. He has translated extensively from
Indonesian and Malay. In 1991, he was awarded the
Anugerah Pengembangan Sastera by the Federation of
Malay Writing Societies (GAPENA) for his contributions to the international
recognition of Malay Literature. Among his major translations are Secrets Need
Words: Indonesian Poetry 1966-1998 (2001), short listed for the NSW Premier’s
Translation Award 2003, and Saint Rosa: Selected Verse of Dorothea Rosa Herliany
(2005), winner of the Khatulistiwa Prize for Poetry, Jakarta 2006. His current research
relates to the work of the Singapore Malay author Isa Kamari.
Nazry Bahrawi is a literary and cultural critic at the
Singapore University of Technology and Design. He has
published academic essays on translation as cultural rewritings and ideology. As a translator, Nazry has published
an English translation of Nadiputra's Malay play about the
last village in Singapore, and has just recently completed
translating collection of short stories by Cultural Medallion
winner Mohamed Latiff Mohamed into English. He was
formerly the interview editor of Asymptote.
Bashir Basalamah began his translation and interpreting
career in the civil service, learning the craft on the job in
the Judiciary before joining the Parliament as staff
interpreter. Since turning freelance, he has gained the
Australian NAATI Professional Translator accreditation,
admission to the International Association of Conference
Interpreters (AIIC), and membership of the American and
the Malaysian Translators Associations. He is a founding
member of BAHTERA, an Indonesian translation e-group of about 2500 members, as
well as the smaller Malay translation e-group TERAJU. He has now found a new
interest in the training and professional development of translators and interpreters.
He feels privileged to conduct PD workshops for colleagues in the Judiciary and, as
an Associate of SIM University, enjoys teaching translation and interpreting to a new
generation of potential linguists.
Yi-Chiao Chen holds a PhD in Translation Studies from
Imperial College London and is currently a visiting fellow in
the Department of Chinese Studies, National University of
Singapore. He teaches basic translation, literary translation,
audiovisual translation and computer-aided translation
tools, and his research interests cover translation theories,
translation technologies, computer-aided translation tools
and literary translation. Prior to his position in NUS, he was
assistant professor at the Department of Translation and Interpreting in Wenzao
Ursuline University of Languages in Taiwan. He is a practising English-Chinese
translator with published novel translations, including 動物農莊 (Animal Farm) and 教
宗之死 (The Last Pope). He is now translating Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
Kenneth Dean is Professor and Head of the Department of
Chinese Studies and a Senior Researcher at the Asia
Research Institute of the National University of Singapore.
He is Lee Chair and James McGill Professor Emeritus of
McGill University. Prof Dean is the author of several books
on Daoism and Chinese popular religion. His current
research
concerns
transnational
trust
and
temple
networks linking Singapore Chinese temples to Southeast
China and Southeast Asia. As part of this project, he is conducting a survey of 800
Chinese temples in Singapore. He plans to publish a collection of stone inscriptions
from these temples next year, entitled Chinese Epigraphy of Singapore: 1819-1911.
Arista Szu-Yu Kuo is an Assistant Professor of Translation
Studies in the Division of Chinese, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. Prior to that, she carried out her PhD
studies at Imperial College London and worked as a
teaching fellow at the Centre for Translation Studies,
University College London. Arista also worked as a
freelance translator, interpreter and subtitler, and had
been involved in a variety of projects in diversified fields,
including finance, business and commerce, law, politics,
innovation and technology, cultural and creative industries, and of course, films.
Her research interests include audio-visual translation, translator training, translation
quality assessment, and cross-cultural communication.
Lee Siew Li is currently Director (Translation Department) at
the Ministry of Communications & Information. She is
heading the secretariat of National Translation Committee
that looks into the short and long plans to enhance WholeOf-Government translation capabilities, as well as for the
community/industry. Prior joining the public service, she
was with a non-profit organisation, Business China as the
Director for Corporate Communications and Go East
(Youth Initiative). She was also a former senior broadcast journalist with MediaCorp,
producing bilingual news reports. She received a Master in Foreign Linguistics and
Applied Linguistics at Beijing Foreign Studies University, Graduate School of
Translation and Interpretation in 2008.
Daisy Ng holds advanced degrees from Stanford and
Harvard but left a successful career in academia to pursue
her love of translation. After professional training at the
Monterey Institute of International Studies, she has been
working as a freelance interpreter and translator based in
Hong Kong. She provides service in consecutive and
simultaneous
interpreting
(English/Mandarin
and
English/Cantonese) for conferences, business meetings,
forum presentations, training sessions and in legal settings
such as witness interviews, deposition, arbitration, and tribunal hearings, as well as
immigration interviews.
Kirpal Singh is an eminently recognised creativity guru
whose only major headache has been timing: Being a
futurist his ideas have often met with resistance only to
fructify in different avatar years later! Not afraid to voice
strong viewpoints, Dr Singh has been invited to speak at
some of the most important global platforms dealing with
the future and creativity. He is an internationally renowned
author and has given talks and conducted seminars and
workshops at some of the world’s top universities, including MIT, Yale, NYU,
Columbia, Georgetown, Cambridge. Currently Dr Singh is Director of the Wee Kim
Wee Centre at the Singapore Management University where he also teaches. His
latest book is Naked Ape, Naked Boss: The Man Behind the Singapore Zoo: Bernard
Harrison.
Tan Dan Feng is director of renowned Southeast Asian
books specialist Select Books and is active in the regional
language, translation and publishing sectors. He has been
involved in the translation programmes at NTU, NUS and
SIM
University
as
course
coordinator,
lecturer
and
academic advisory board member. He sits on several
government
committees,
including
the
National
Translation Committee, the NAC Arts Advisory Panel and
the MCI Television and Radio Advisory Committee Panel of
Experts. He has presented widely on translation issues across Asia. Books that he has
edited or co-edited include Singapore Shifting Boundaries (2011), Indonesia Rising:
Islam, Democracy and the Rise of Indonesia as a Major Power (2009) and The
Chinese in Indonesia (2008).
Susan Xu is the Head of Translation and Interpretation
programme at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, SIM
University.
Since
2002,
she
has
been
involved
in
conceptualizing and implementing translator’s education
programmes in Singapore, ranging from the Certificate
and Diploma programmes to the Bachelor’s degree in
Translation and Interpretation. She pioneered the project
of Certification Examinations for Professional Interpreters
and Translators in Singapore. Susan has published in international journals including
Babel, Journal of Translation Studies and Translation Quarterly. Apart from being a
member of the scientific committee of International Symposium of Bilingualism, she
sits on the advisory committees for a local government agency and a public
institution.
Kanagalatha (Latha) has published two collections of
poetry in Tamil: Theeveli (Firespace) (2003), and Paampuk
Kaattil Oru Thaazhai (A Screwpin in Snakeforest) (2004).
She has also published a short story collection Nan kolai
Seyium penkkal (Women I Murder) in 2007, which won the
biennial Singapore Literature Prize in 2008. The English
translation of her short story collection The Goddess in the
Living Room was published in 2014. Her poems and short
stories have been published in various publications and Tamil literary journals
Singapore, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and France. Her works have been translated
into English, French and German.
Her bilingual poems Still Human was also
featured in the MRT: Poems on the Move series on the MRT trains by the National
Arts Council (1996), Karanguni was displayed in the MOVING WORDS 2011 show
casing Singaporean literature on the MRT network by The Literary Centre (2011). She
has edited Letters from grandma and grandpa (published by NLB, 2008) and G.
Sarangapany's Literary Legacy (published by NAC & Tamil Murasu, 2013). She is
currently the Sunday editor of Tamil Murasu, Singapore’s Tamil daily newspaper.
Translators Lab Final Presentations
Harry Aveling (see Singapore Translation Symposium)
Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and
Singapore, working as a teacher, writer, researcher, and
translator. She is the author of six volumes of poetry and a
pair of travel guides for the cities of Suzhou and Shanghai.
She has translated work from the Chinese for Penguin
Books, Epigram Publishing, the National Library Board in
Singapore, Giramondo Books, and Rinchen Books. Shelly's
poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites
around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s
Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012. You can visit
her website at shellybryant.com.
Kate Griffin is Associate Programme Director at Writers’
Centre
Norwich. From
2010
to
2015, she
ran
the
international programme at the British Centre for Literary
Translation, at the University of East Anglia, developing
projects in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and
Europe. An international literature consultant, she also
works with the London Review of Books. From 2005 until
2010 Kate was a judge for the Independent Foreign
Fiction Prize. She spent most of the 1990s working overseas in Belgium and Russia.
Subashree Krishnaswamy is an editor, translator and writer.
She edited the Indian Review of Books, a monthly
magazine devoted to reviews of books, for a number of
years. As editor of Manas, EastWest Books, she edited
several award-winning titles, both translations from various
Indian languages into English and original writings in
English. Her book, The Babel Guide to South Indian Fiction
in Translation, was published by Babel Books, UK. She
edited and translated into English an anthology of Tamil poetry, Rapids of a Great
River (Penguin), along with Lakshmi Holmstrom and K Srilata. She collaborated with
K Srilata on the book Short Fiction from South India (OUP). The Tamil Story: Through
the Times, Through the Tides, an anthology that traces the evolution of the Tamil
short story, translated by her into English and edited by Dilip Kumar, is in the press.
She is an adjunct professor at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.
The Art Of Subtitles
Karen Chan is the Executive Director of the Asian Film
Archive (AFA). A pioneer staff of the AFA since 2006, Karen
manages the AFA's growth, preservation and curation of
collection and programmes. She oversaw AFA’s transition
as a subsidiary to the National Library Board and under
her leadership, the AFA had its first collection of films
inscribed into the UNESCO Memory of the World AsiaPacific
Register.
Karen
teaches
courses
on
film
preservation and literacy, Singapore cinema history and social memory to pretertiary and tertiary institutions. She is currently on the Executive Council of the South
East Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archive Association. Her prior work experiences
include teaching English and History, working with the National Archives of
Singapore and the Natural History Museum in New York City.
David Lee has years of experience as a film programmer,
reviewer and publicist, having curated various film festivals
and events such as the Singapore Chinese Film Festival,
SFS Talkies, Animation Nation, SG Films@ Library, and
community screenings for People’s Association. He has
reviewed movies for Good Morning Singapore and
contributed regular film articles and reviews to InSing.com.
Being effectively bilingual, David has moderated and
interpreted for the Singapore Writers Festival. He has also helped award-winning
filmmakers Sun Koh and Kirsten Tan with the translation of their scripts into
Chinese. David is currently the Vice Chairman of the Singapore Film Society. He cofounded The Filmic Eye, a consultancy firm that specializes in film marketing and
film education programs.
Alfian Sa’at is a Resident Playwright with W!LD RICE, one of
Singapore’s most recognised theatre companies. He was
also an Associate Artist with Teater Ekamatra, a Malaylanguage theatre company as well as an Associate
Playwright with The Necessary Stage. His published works
include three collections of poetry, One Fierce Hour, A
History of Amnesia and The Invisible Manuscript; a
collection of short stories, Corridor; a collection of flash
fiction, Malay Sketches; two collections of plays, as well as the published play
Cooling Off Day. In 2001, Alfian won the Golden Point Award for Poetry as well as
the National Arts Council Young Artist Award for Literature. His plays and short
stories have been translated into German, Swedish, Danish and Japanese and
have been read and performed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brisbane, Melbourne,
London, Zürich, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Copenhagen and Stockholm.
Yap Hon Ngian studied in Chung Cheng High School before
spending more than a decade in London. He did language
courses at the School of Law and Modern Languages in
London. He was a member of the Institute of Linguists in
London. He worked as a translator and interpreter in London
from 1974-79. From 1980-83, he worked as a translator and
interpreter in Singapore. He was the Head of Subtlting with
SBC, TCS and MediaCorp from 1983-2011. He is currently semi-retired.
School Workshops
Daisy Ng (please see Singapore Translation Symposium)
Jeremy Tiang's short story collection It Never Rains on
National Day was published by Epigram Books in 2015. His
writing has also appeared in The Guardian, Esquire, Asia
Literary Review, Brooklyn Rail, Drunken Boat, Meanjin,
Ambit, QLRS and Best New Singaporean Short Stories, and
he won the Golden Point Award in 2009. He has translated
more than 10 books from Chinese, including work by Yeng
Pway Ngon, You Jin, Wong Yoon Wah, Yan Geling, Yu
Qiuyu, Su Wei-chen and Zhang Yueran. Shorter translations
have appeared in Two Lines, the Iowa Review, Asymptote and The Stinging Fly. He
is a 2016 American NEA Literary Translation Fellow, and has received grants from
PEN/ Heim and the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature. Jeremy also writes
and translates plays, including Floating Bones (two plays by Quah Sy Ren and Han
Lao Da, The Arts House), A Dream of Red Pavilions (adapted from the novel Hong
Lou
Meng;
Pan-Asian
Repertory
Theatre,
Limehouse (Yellow Earth Theatre, London).
NYC)
and The
Last
Days
of