The winners of the 2026 Taiwan-Ireland Poetry Translation Competition have been announced! This year's competition featured Taiwan Taigi poetry by Taiwanese poet Jocelyn Wen (温若喬), inviting translators worldwide to translate the selected poems into English. Following the judges' deliberations, the winning translations have been selected!
Established in 2021, the Taiwan-Ireland Poetry Translation Competition has continued to promote literary exchange between Taiwan and Ireland through poetry translation. Since 2024, it has been jointly organized by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation at Trinity College Dublin, and the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland. The competition invites translators worldwide to engage in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural dialogue through translating Taiwanese poetry into English.
This year's competition featured three poems from Jocelyn Wen's collection Jit-hue Siám-sih (《日花閃爍》): “Sio-sî” (〈相辭〉), “Bô-siann-bô-sueh” (〈無聲無說〉), and “Kiânn-kha-hue” (〈行跤花〉). These poems highlight the nuances of everyday Taiwan Taigi, emotional expression, and poetic rhythm, while challenging translators to convey their sounds, imagery, and cultural meanings in English. The winning entries were selected by a panel of poetry experts appointed by the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.
■ Winners
Chiray Lin（林祺叡）
Chiray Lin graduated from the Department of Translation and Interpretation Studies at Chang Jung Christian University and has a strong interest in translation. He enjoys exploring cross-cultural contexts and capturing subtle linguistic nuances within time constraints and established guidelines, striving for precise and fluent expression. Beyond his focus on Chinese-English translation, exploring different languages has also strengthened his linguistic sensitivity and flexibility. Lin grew up hearing Taiwanese spoken at home and later began exploring its written form, gradually coming to appreciate the beauty of the mother tongue he had known since childhood. Already a reader of Jocelyn Wen’s poetry collection Jit-hue Siám-sih (《日花閃爍》), he decided to enter this year’s competition upon learning of the call for submissions, extending his engagement with Taiwanese to the practice of poetry translation.
Chiara Mastronardo（馬佳蘭）
Chiara Mastronardo was awarded her PhD in English from Trinity College Dublin in 2026. As an early-career researcher, she was awarded a scholarship to undertake a short-term period of study at 國立臺灣師範大學 National Taiwan Normal University in 2014, and studied at 北京大学 Peking University in 2017 while pursuing an M.Phil. in Chinese Studies at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies. Chiara’s current research focuses on islands’ literature in comparative perspective, and unfolds against the backdrop of global archipelagic connections. Her research aims to bridge the diverse literary landscapes between the islands of Ireland and Taiwan, analysing specific texts with a multifaceted tidalectic approach.
Will Buckingham（白忠修）
Will Buckingham is a writer, translator and philosopher from the UK, who currently divides his time between Taiwan and Scotland. He is a student of the Taiwanese language, and is co-editor of Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic (Wind&Bones Books). He is also author of Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connection in a Divided World (Granta 2022), Stealing With the Eyes: Imaginings and Incantations in Indonesia (Haus 2018), Sixty-Four Chance Pieces: A Book of Changes (Earnshaw Books 2015) and many other books. He co-directs the publishing house Wind&Bones Books, which works on projects that cross between languages and cultures. Will is Professor of Social Sciences and Humanities at Parami University, where he teaches philosophy, creative writing and general humanities courses to students in post-coup Myanmar. He is currently working on a number of translation projects from both Mandarin and Taiwanese.
For more information, please visit the following link: National Museum of Taiwan Literature News Release: https://reurl.cc/gNX77z
