Building Other Bodies: A Conversation About Speculative Fiction In Translation, With Mona Kareem

This event brings together writers and translators of speculative fiction from Taiwan, South Korea, and Kuwait: Mona Kareem, NEA-award-winning poet who translated Octavia Butler’s Kindred into Arabic in 2020; Bora Chung, author of the short story collection Cursed Bunny (Honford Star, 2021) and the collection’s PEN-Award-winning translator Anton Hur; Chi Ta-wei 紀大偉, author of the 1995 queer Taiwanese classic The Membranes (Columbia University Press, 2021), and the novel’s translator Ari Larissa Heinrich (translator of Qiu Miaojin’s Last Words from Montmartre (NYRB, 2014)). The conversation will explore the craft of writing speculative fiction, the challenges—both technical and institutional—of bringing these works into/out of English, and the problems of race, genre, and geography. The 90-minute discussion will be moderated by Dr. Claire Gullander-Drolet and Dr. Dylan Suher (Society of Fellows in the Humanities, University of Hong Kong), followed by a Q and A.

This event forms part of the 2021 Hong Kong International Literary Festival.