TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The Taiwan/Ireland Poetry Translation Competition, a collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland, announced on Monday (Dec. 11) that Taiwanese translator Li Lo and Northern Irish translator Michael Sharkey were both winners in the Hakka poetry category.
This year's competition focused on translating Hakka poetry into English, featuring a piece titled "Daylight" created for the event by Taiwanese poet Tseng Gui-hai.
During an online award ceremony, Tseng expressed his delight with the exceptional English translations, which he believed would connect people worldwide to Hakka culture, drawing parallels between the histories of Taiwan and Ireland.
James Hadley, Director of the Center for Literary & Cultural Translation at Trinity College, praised the winning entries for their creative interpretation of the original poem and their ability to capture the musicality of English in a way that resonates with the phonetic variations and cultural sentiments of Hakka.
Taiwan's representative to Ireland, Yang Tzu-pao, highlighted the importance of understanding Hakka culture as an integral part of Taiwan's diversity, contributing to a better comprehension of the country as a whole.
