Jenna Tang is a Taiwanese writer and translator based in New York. She translates from Chinese, French, and Spanish. Her translations and essays have appeared in Restless Books, AAWW, WLT, Catapult, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. She is a selected translator for the 2021 ALTA Emerging Translators Mentorship program with a focus on Taiwanese prose.
Translator’s note: The following text by Lin Yi-Han, like her novel Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise, is based on the theme of what it’s like to dwell in a body that carries traum...
Only I never came back
I was not going to be long
—W. S. Merwin
1
I live where Lady Gaga files her taxes
where the police
do as they please
where this paleface multitud...