Poet – Dan Ying
Lew Poo Chan, better known by her pen name Dan Ying, is widely acclaimed in the international literary community as one of the world’s major Chinese woman poets. Born in Perak and educated in Malaysia, Taiwan and the USA, the Chinese language educator made Singapore her home in the ’70s. Over the decades, she has forged a literary oeuvre of subtle and profound works influenced by classical Chinese poetry and Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, expressing the poet’s inner world in simple, graceful language rich in emotion, metaphor and meaning. Her many literary prizes include two National Book Development Council of Singapore Awards for poetry, the 1995 Southeast Asia Write Award and the 1996 Cultural Medallion.
Guest-translator – Christina Ng 黄诗惠
Christina Ng is a Singaporean writer, journalist and translator based in Berlin. Working between English and Chinese, she has interpreted for film and theatre productions, as well as written and translated essays, interviews and features on art, travel, and culture. She received a research grant in 2021 from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe for an essay collection on multilingualism. Her Chinese to English literary translations include poetry by Singaporean poets Dan Ying and Pan Shou, as well as poet/lyricist Liang Wern Fook’s short story collection The Joy of a Left Hand (Balestier Press).
Facilitator – Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún
Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún is a Nigerian writer who has worked for many years as a linguist (recently at Google), lexicographer (at Oxford English Dictionary), Fulbright scholar (Southern Illinois University), schoolteacher, and currently Chevening Research Fellow at the British Library in London. In 2016, he was the recipient of the “Special Prize” of Premio Ostana, given for work in indigenous language advocacy. His collection of poetry, published in 2018, is titled Edwardsville by Heart.
