| Eleanor Goodman | |
| Other Names: | 顾爱玲 |
| Occupation: | poet, writer, and translator |
| Years Active: | 2014- |
Eleanor Goodman (born 1979; Chinese: c=顾爱玲|p=Gu Ailing) is an American poet, writer, and translator of Chinese. Her 2014 translation of the poems of Wang Xiaoni, Something Crosses My Mind was an international finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize[1] and a winner of the Lucien Stryk American Literary Translators Association Prize for excellence in translation.[2]
Goodman is a 2001 graduate of Amherst College, with degrees in English and music,[3] [4] and a masters degree in poetry from Boston University.[5]
She first gained notice for her translation of Wang Xiaoni with its shortlisting for the Griffin prize, noted as the largest monetary award for poetry in the world; for translations the award's "focus is on the achievement of the translator."[6] Reviews of the work cited its "brilliant translation" and said that Goodman was "a wonderful poet."[7] Reviews appeared in the journal Cha and mainstream Chinese newspapers, South China Morning Post (also calling it a "brilliant translation") and Caixin Online.[8] Feature articles on her work have appeared in Chinese in China News,[9] The Paper,[10] Paper Republic[11] and LifeWeek.[12] The work was previously awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and went on to win the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize in 2015.
Goodman's first book of original poetry, Nine Dragon Island (Zephyr, 2016) was a finalist for the 2014 Drunken Boat poetry award.[13] The book was glowingly reviewed, with one reviewer saying it "offers some of the most evocative and sensitive poems about dying and grief that I’ve read in a very long time."[14] Short stories by Goodman have appeared in Fiction and other journals. She has been interviewed in the L.A. Review of Books, Poetry International, and The Shanghai Literary Review.[15]
Goodman's seminal translation of the anthology Iron Moon: Chinese Worker's Poetry (White Pine Press, 2017) was named a "Book of the Year" in the Times Literary Supplement and one of "The Paris Review Staff's Favorite Books of 2020."[16] The book is the first anthology of Chinese migrant worker poetry to be translated into English, and continues to be an important resource, receiving references and reviews in prominent journals and newspapers such as The Economist,[17] the Asia-Pacific Journal,[18] and The New York Times.[19]
Subsequent works by Goodman include The Roots of Wisdom Series: Selected Poems of Zang Di (Zephyr Press, 2017), which was awarded the prestigious Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation from the Association for Asian Studies, and Days When I Hide My Corpse in a Cardboard Box: Poems by Lok Fung (Zephyr Press, 2018), which was shortlisted for the Lucien Stryk Prize.[20]
In 2013, Goodman was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for research in China.[21] She has also had residencies and visiting artist appointments at the Vermont Studio Center and the American Academy in Rome.[22] She is a research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.[23] Goodman has written for many venues, including The Paris Review, Best American Poetry, the Los Angeles Review of Books, SupChina, and ChinaFile.[24]
Goodman was the recipient of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship for her translation of Zang Di's Elegies for My Son.
"Translations are assessed for their quality as poetry in English; the focus is on the achievement of the translator. Should a prize-winning book be a translation from a living poet, the prize is awarded 60% to the translator and 40% to the original poet."
"The best translations are honest but not single-mindedly loyal, creative but not boundlessly wild. . .Goodman's translation is certainly an endeavour like that."Web site: Poetry review: Something Crosses My Mind, by Wang Xiaoni. 6 September 2014 . South China Morning Post. Web site: Jennifer. Wong. Caixin Online. Book: Something Crosses My Mind.