Brian Holton talks to Irish Pages Managing Editor Jacob Agee about his latest work of translation for the Irish Pages Press, Aa Cled Wi Clouds She Camm, which consists of translations into Scots and English of the first sixty poems of the standard anthology Song Ci Sanbaishou, a foundational work of Chinese lyric verse. They discuss the history of translation from Chinese to English, the world of the Tang and Song dynasties in which the cí were written, and the particular technical challenges of Chinese as a source language, such as its lack of articles and pronouns, where the first task for the translator is to work out who is doing what to whom.
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