An Annotated Translation of Yuan Ling's "Silent Children" (2019)

FAIN: FEL-288460-23

Randolph Trumbull
Unaffiliated independent scholar

Translation into English of the Chinese nonfiction writer Yuan Ling's Silent Children (2019), a study of forty marginalized children living in both urban and rural settings throughout China. 

In twelve funded months, I will execute a scholarly, annotated translation of Yuan Ling’s "Silent Children" (2019), an award-winning study of forty marginalized children living all over China, in both urban and rural settings. "Silent Children" examines children in the context of their associations with family, friends, and teachers, and gauges the content of their emotional lives through their words and deeds. Twenty of its thirty-six chapters describe life among China’s ethnic minorities: Uyghur, Miao, Yao, Tajik, Li, and Kazakh. Many of the children suffer from serious illnesses related to environmental pollution; thus, Yuan Ling documents how parents and their kids struggle to navigate the world of Chinese healthcare. I estimate that a full translation of "Silent Children" into English will reach 250,000 words in length. If necessary, Yuan Ling and I will work with the University of California Press to shorten his book for the English-reading public.