Something Crosses My Mind
by Wang Xiaoni (China)
Translated from the Chinese by Eleanor Goodman
(Zephyr Press)
“I rush down the stairs,/ pull open the door,/ dash about in the spring sunlight…” So begins this exquisite collection of translations by Eleanor Goodman of poems composed over the past several decades by Wang Xiaoni. In what follows we are taken out into the streets and on cross-country trains, into villages, cities and markets; we peep out through the windows of the poet’s home and sense the nostalgia invoked by a simple potato. Here is a poetry of the everyday, written in delicate yet deceptively simple language, and translated beautifully into its like in this first collection of Wang’s work to appear in English. Something Crosses My Mind offers up the refreshing voice of a poet forging her own path, neither shunning the political nor dwelling in the lyrical but gently and resolutely exploring her world in her writing.
The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize recognizes the importance of Asian translation for international literature and promotes the translation of Asian works into English. Lucien Stryk was an internationally acclaimed translator of Japanese and Chinese Zen poetry, renowned Zen poet himself, and former professor of English at Northern Illinois University. Information about the prize is available on the ALTA website. Judges for the 2015 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize are Lucas Klein, Janet Poole, and Stephen Snyder.
The award-winning book and translator for 2015 will be announced on October 28th at the 38th annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association in Tucson, AZ and receive a $5,000 award. Information on the conference is available online: www.literarytranslators.org/alta38
Follow our blog (www.literarytranslators.org/blog), on Twitter (@LitTranslate), or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/literarytranslation) for the announcement of the winn
