In the middle of any worthwhile project, there’s often a point where you step back, and you ask yourself, “How did I get myself mixed up in all this?” And this is certainly the case with the big editing and typesetting job that I’m involved in at the moment. The proofs and cover for Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic are almost finished, and they are looking fabulous. The book was funded by a small grant from the Scottish Government’s Scottish Connections Fund. We commissioned two writers in Gaelic and two writers in Taiwanese to write new stories, and then we collaboratively translated these stories between Gaelic, English, Mandarin and Taiwanese. The book will be published by Wind&Bones Books, and we’re currently on schedule for our launch on June 15th 2025.
We started the project because we became interested in the parallel histories of language suppression and revival in both Scotland and Taiwan. And we thought that it would be interesting to explore this by commissioning some new stories that explore the complexities of language, memory, history and identity. The stories — by Naomi Sím and Kiú-kiong in Taiwan, and by Elissa Hunter-Dorans and Lisa MacDonald in Scotland — are wonderful, and it’s been fascinating to see them migrate between languages and contexts. There are also translations by Shengchi Hsu (from English to Mandarin), and also by me (from Taiwanese to English). What happens when a Taiwanese goddess starts to speak Gaelic? How do you communicate the precise feel of a Hogmanay party in Inverness at the end of the 1970s, when writing in Taiwanese? These are the kinds of challenges that our writers and translators took on when they got involved in the project.
Working on a manuscript in four languages — English, Mandarin, Taiwanese (Tâi-gí) and Gaelic — has not been without its challenges. These challenges are compounded by the fact that we’re giving the Taiwanese texts in not just one, but two writing systems — Han characters or Hàn-jī / 漢字, and Pe̍h-ōe-jī Romanisation. This makes five versions of every story. But things are very close to being done. We’ve already had a bunch of pre-orders, and if you pre-order now, you can get a shout-out in the final book. Just click the (still rough, but already undeniably handsome) cover below to take you to the Wind&Bones Bookshop.
We’ve developed a taste for this, and we love books in multiple languages. So we’ve got some more translation / multilingual projects in the works as well. I’ll keep you all posted!
