Tâigael as Rosetta Stone: Book Launch and Talking Translation in Tainan

On Saturday afternoon we were at the wonderful 無有為 Bookstore & Café Nothing, in Tainan’s East District, for our first Taiwan-based event for our book Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic. Both of our Taiwan-based writers—Naomi Sím and Kiú-kiong—were there to celebrate the launch, and to talk about the complicated business of translating between not two, but four languages.

Fellow editor Will and I talked about the inspiration for the project, the financial support we received from the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to develop the project and book and our experience of editing and publishing. 

It really has been wonderful putting together and working with this cross-global team of writers and translators. And it's been a delight getting this book and these stories out into the world via Wind&Bones Books. It's been a lot of hard work - as Will Buckingham will also testify - but it's been a lot of fun too.

The event was all in Taiwanese with a smattering of English, mainly from me! Naomi and Kiú-kiong gave a fascinating talk on this quadrilingual book as a kind of contemporary Rosetta Stone, and talked about the challenges of translating from and into Taiwanese. There was also lots of time to chat, to sign books, and to hang out with fellow literature, short story and language enthusiasts.

It was one of those events that was full of fascinating, lively conversations and that sparked lots of new ideas and connections.

Thank you to the attentive audience at the event and to everyone who has bought the book so far in Taiwan, Scotland, England, Canada, Australia and beyond!