Diasporic and Clan are two volumes of short stories by the sinophone Singaporean writer Soon Ai Ling, translated, transcreated and adapted by Yeo Wei Wei. Yeo has done a translation of Soon stories in Diasporic, and then transcreated and adapted them in Clan. As a translator myself, I was intrigued by this adventure in story-telling, so I asked Yeo Wei Wei to tell me more.
NH: could you tell me how you came across Soon's stories and what attracted you to them?
WW: I received an email from Ailing one day out of the blue whilst I was in Norwich doing my MA in Creative Writing. She had asked Eva Tang about my translation of the subtitles and song lyrics for Eva’s documentary The Songs We Sang. She liked my translation very much and wished to approach me to ask if I would translate her fiction. After I finished my MA, I returned to Singapore and I looked for Ailing’s book of short stories in the National Library. I read them and I also watched Eva’s short film that was based on Ailing’s story “Chef Tham”. Ailing’s stories are set in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. The Chinese diasporic contexts in these different countries are the basis of the rich story worlds found in her fiction. She is unique for this reason, amongst Singaporean Chinese authors. I was also attracted to the predicaments of her protagonists. Very often, her stories deal with the private struggles of men and women in traditional Asian family settings. They are individuals torn between personal desires and family history, hierarchy, family values and expectations.
