London, July 15 (CNA) Trinity College has selected the poem, "Through Centenary Square," authored by Tēnn Sūn-tshong (鄭順聰) for their 2022 "Translation Slam" competition, with entrants asked to submit their English reinterpretations of the Taiwanese Hokkien work before Oct. 1.
Winners of the competition, which is being run in conjunction with the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland, will be invited to the university's Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation to give a talk on their work, according to organizers.
James Hadley, an assistant professor at the center, said the rich musicality and rhythm of "Through Centenary Square" provided echoes of James Joyce's "Ulysses," which celebrates its 100th birthday this year.
To give participants a feel for the cadence and meter of "Through Centenary Square," the organizers invited Tēnn to record a video reading of his poem in its original Taiwanese Hokkien.
Tēnn, born in 1976 in the southern Taiwan county of Chiayi, is a writer known for his devotion to furthering Taiwanese Hokkien literature and passing on the cultural legacy of the dialect. His works range from poems to prose, novels, and plays.
On Tuesday, Yang Tzu-pao (楊子葆), head of the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland, praised this year's Translation Slam competition for shining a light on linguistic diversity, something that has played an important role in the cultural heritage of both Taiwan and Ireland.
The Chinese Mandarin-language "Amnesty of the Night" by Tsao Yu-po (曹馭博) was selected for the inaugural competition in 2021, and Yang said that poems in Hakka or Indigenous languages may be considered for future editions.
