Session Description
Meaning can be lost in translation — but it can also be strengthened. In this virtual panel discussion, translators Ryad Assani-Razaki, Jinwoo Park, and Leilei Chen explore how translation choices shape narrative, voice, and access in a panel conversation that examines how language can carry cultural nuance and how thoughtful translation can advance social justice.
Sponsored by Literary Press Group.
Featured Speaker(s)
Ryad Assani-Razaki
Ryad Assani-Razaki (he/him) was born in 1981 in Cotonou in the West African state of Benin. In 2009, his short story collection Deux cercles was awarded the Trillium Book Award. His debut novel, The Hand of Iman (La main d’Iman), won the Prix Robert-Cliche in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction in 2012.
Leilei 莫译 Chen
Leilei Chen 莫译(muo-yee) (she/her) is the author of Re-orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-cultural Understanding; the Mandarin translator (both simplified and traditional Chinese) of Nationalism: A Very Short Introduction and MA Hui’s contemporary Chinese poetry, I Have Forsaken Heaven and Earth, but Never Forsaken You. Her translations of Chinese women’s fiction and ecological writings are anthologized in Virginia’s Sisters: An Anthology of Women’s Writing and Environmental Futures: An International Literary Anthology. She recently published her poetry chapbook, i give birth to my body. Her Mandarin version of Margaret Laurence’s A Bird in the House is forthcoming in 2026.
Jinwoo Park
Jinwoo Park (he/him) is a Korean-Canadian writer based in Montreal. Born and raised in Seoul, he has lived in various parts of North America and the UK since the age of 11. He obtained his master’s in creative writing at the University of Oxford in 2015. In 2021 he won the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers’ Award from the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop. He has also been actively working as a literary translator after winning the Emerging Translator Award from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea in late 2023. Oxford Soju Club, published by Dundurn Press, is his first novel.
Maureen Tai
Maureen Tai (she/her) has a multi-faceted literary career as an award-winning published children’s author, adult fiction and non-fiction writer, accidental poet and book reviewer. Her works have appeared in Cha, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Baltimore Review, Kyoto Journal, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine, and the Hooghly Review, among others. She is also a speaker, moderator and visual storyteller, having managed the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in 2023, and moderated talks with authors such as Pico Iyer, Emily St John Mandel and Asako Yuzuki. Maureen’s work can be found at www.maureentai.com.