Honey Watson is an English author and translator of literature from Mandarin to English. Her debut science fiction novel Lessons in Birdwatching was published in 2023.
Honey Watson | |
|---|---|
| Occupation |
|
| Education |
|
| Genre | Horror, Science fiction |
| Years active | 2023-present |
| Notable works |
|
Early life and education
editWatson is from Yorkshire, where she attended Wakefield Girls' High School.[1] She graduated with a first in History from University College London (UCL).[2][3] She then pursued the Master's programme at Yenching Academy, a graduate college of Peking University, in Beijing. She states she did not speak a word of Chinese before arriving in Beijing.[4]
After reading the assigned reading, Lu Xun's Diary of a Madman, Watson insisted on changing majors to Chinese literature, and began the process of self-teaching herself to translate literature.[4]
Following Yenching, Watson pursued a PhD in Comparative Literature from NYU.[5]
Career
editChinese novelist Su Tong gave a month-long series of lectures at NYU, which Watson assisted by providing English language translations of his discussed stories throughout. This would lead to Watson translating a short story collection of Tong's called Midnight Stories: A short story collection from the mind behind Raise the Red Lantern.[4]
Her debut novel Lessons in Birdwatching was published by Angry Robot in 2023 in the US and UK to positive reviews.[6][7] She would write from dive bars in Las Vegas.[8]
Watson's first novel-length translation was Fan Wu's Souls Left Behind: A WW1 Chinese Labour Corps Novel.[4]
She contributed to a collection of short stories by Yao Emei, where each story was translated by a different translator, called The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China.[4][9]
Bibliography
editNovels
edit- Lessons in Birdwatching - (Angry Robot, 2023).
Translations
edit- Souls Left Behind: A WW1 Chinese Labour Corps Novel, by Fan Wu (Sinoist Books, 2024) -- trans. by Honey Watson
- The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China, by Yao Emei (Sinoist Books, 2024) -- trans. by Will Spence, Olivia Milburn, Honey Watson and Martin Wards
- Midnight Stories: A short story collection from the mind behind Raise the Red Lantern, by Su Tong (Sinoist Books, 2024) -- trans. by Honey Watson
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Prefects" (PDF). Wakefield Girls' High School. 2010. p. 10. Retrieved 25 September 2024.
- ^ "Training world leaders of the future: student case studies". UCL. 10 October 2017.
- ^ "Honey Watson". The Bent Agency.
- ^ a b c d e Xuyen, Shi; Yu, Ying (14 September 2023). "Honey Watson: Translating out of love for contemporary Chinese literature". People's Daily Online.
- ^ "Honey Watson". AngryRobotBooks.
- ^ Di Filippo, Paul (17 October 2023). "Paul Di Filippo Reviews Lessons in Birdwatching by Honey Watson". Locus Magazine.
- ^ Mercik, Nadya (2023). "Lessons in Birdwatching". British Fantasy Society.
- ^ "Careen Towards Annihilation With Lessons in Birdwatching by Honey Watson". Reactor Mag. TOR.com. 26 October 2022.
- ^ "The Unfilial: Four Tragic Tales from Modern China". Sinoist Books.