Ping Lu and Jeremy Tiang Discuss Translation

The first story is an interview with author Ping Lu and translator Jeremy Tiang about the long path to publishing the English translation of her novel. The second details author Audrey Niffenegger's fourteen-year process of writing a sequel to her bestselling debut, 'The Time Traveler's Wife.'

Translation of To the East of the East

Ping Lu and translator Jeremy Tiang discussed the origins and challenges of bringing her novel 'To the East of the East' into English. The initial inspiration for the Taiwanese author's book was the thought of widespread misrecognitions between people and concepts. Jeremy Tiang was first contacted about translating the work nearly a decade ago by a Taiwanese agency; he completed the translation over a year and received an edit from Anna Holmwood. The project then lay dormant until Tiang himself contacted the funder, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, and successfully submitted the manuscript to publisher World Editions.

Specific translation challenges arose from the novel's movement between Taipei, Macau, and Beijing, each with distinct variants of Chinese, and between the present day and the 17th century. Tiang had to switch between different linguistic registers to capture the various voices. One particular scene involved a riddle based on adding the heart radical to Chinese characters for 'burnt troops' to form the word for 'fragile.' Tiang decided against explaining the intricate mechanics to English readers, focusing instead on the narrative purpose of the riddle as a flirtatious allusion to a character's fragility. Ping Lu was not involved in the translation process, but Tiang felt the fully realized world of the book provided all the guidance he needed. Ping Lu described the novel's structure as akin to Arvo Pärt's composition 'Spiegel im Spiegel,' with mirrors arranged at different angles reflecting each other.

Audrey Niffenegger's Long-Awaited Sequel

Artist and novelist Audrey Niffenegger began writing the sequel to 'The Time Traveler's Wife' in 2012. The new novel, 'Life Out of Order,' took fourteen years to complete and focuses on the story of Clare and Henry's daughter, Alba. Alba inherited the same genetic condition that causes involuntary time travel but possesses more control over her abilities and a willingness to use them for personal and political ends.

Niffenegger noted that the optimistic political climate when she started writing gradually gave way to a reality where her imagined dystopian futures began to seem worryingly realistic. An early scene involving neo-Nazis at a house party, once considered far-fetched, now feels more plausible. The author, who is 63, always viewed the original 2003 novel as a darker book than many readers did, emphasizing themes of inevitability and choosing happiness despite known future hardships. She lives in a book-filled Chicago home with her husband, artist Eddie Campbell, and her work has consistently transformed her own life. Niffenegger is currently recovering from a long illness but prefers to keep the focus on her art rather than her personal circumstances.