Helen Wang

Helen Kay Wang (; ; born 1965) is an English sinologist and translator. She works as curator of East Asian Money at the British Museum in London. She has also published a number of literary translations from Chinese, including an award-winning translation of a Chinese children's book.

Biography

Wang has a BA in Chinese from SOAS University of London (1988, including a year at the Beijing Language Institute, 1984–1985). She has a PhD in archaeology from University College London, titled "Money on the Silk Road: the evidence from Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800", 2002.

In 1991 Wang joined the British Museum staff as an assistant to Joe Cribb in the Asian section of the Department of Coins and Medals. She became Curator of East Asian Money in 1993. Her work mostly relates to the collections for which she is responsible, collection history and development of the field, in particular East Asian numismatics, Silk Road Numismatics, Sir Aurel Stein and his collections, and textiles as money. She was joint Honorary Secretary of the Royal Numismatic Society from 2011-2016, Hon. Vice President from 2018, and is an honorary member of the editorial board of ''Zhongguo Qianbi'' 《中国钱币》 (''China Numismatics''), the journal of the China Numismatic Society. She was elected as an individual member of the International Association for the Study of Silk Road Textiles (IASSRT) in 2016. In 2017, she started a web-resourc
Chinese Money Matters

Wang was married to Chinese archaeologist Wang Tao, with whom she has two children.

Literary translations

Wang's first published literary translations were in the early 1990s - short stories and essays by Yu Hua, Zhang Chengzhi, Ma Yuan, Du Ma and Zhang Langlang. After a long break, she returned to translation in the 2010s, translating more short stories, essays and children's books. She also works collaboratively with th
China Fiction Book Club
(with Nicky Harman)
Paper RepublicGlobal Literature in Libraries
In 2016, she co-founded the grou
Chinese Books for Young Readers
with Anna Gustafsson Chen an
Minjie Chen
From 2012-2015 she was a Member of the Committee of the Translators Association. She has been on the judging panel of four of th
Writing Chinese
Project's Bai Meigui Chinese translation competitions.

Awards and commendations

* 2019 Awarded the Jeton de Vermeil by the
* 2019 Shortlisted for the GLLI Translated YA Book Prize - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''
*2017 Marsh Christian Award for Children's Literature in Translation - for her translation of ''Bronze and Sunflower'' by Cao Wenxuan
* 2017 Chen Bochui International Children's Literature Award - for translation and increasing visibility of Chinese children's literature
* 2017 Finalist in the Kirkus Awards Young Readers category - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''
* 2017 Nominated for a 2018 YALSA award Best Fiction for Young Adults - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''
* 2017 New York Times Notable Children's Books of 2017 - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''
* 2017 Center for the Study of Multicultural Children's Literature - Best Books of 2017 - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''
* 2015 Awarded an English PEN Writers in Translation grant - for ''Bronze and Sunflower''

Selected publications (books, edited and co-edited volumes)

*2022 ''Chinese Numismatics. The World of Chinese Money'' (Spink, London) (with François Thierry, Lyce Jankowski and Joe Cribb)
*2021 ''Asia Collections in Museums outside Asia: Questioning Artefacts, Cultures and Identities'', Transcultural Perspectives 2020, issue 1, thematic issue in Kunsttexte. Humboldt University. Berlin. (online publication, open-access) (co-ed. with Iside Carbone)
*2013 ''Textiles as Money on the Silk Road'' (co-ed. with Valerie Hansen, 2013)
*2012 ''Sir Aurel Stein, Colleagues and Collections'' (ed., 2012)
*2012 ''The Music of Ink'' (Saffron Books)
*2010 ''A Catalogue of the Japanese Coin Collection (pre-Meiji) at the British Museum, with special reference to Kutsuki Masatsuna'' (co-ed. with Shin'ichi Sakuraki, Peter Kornicki, with Nobuhisa Furuta, Timon Screech and Joe Cribb, 2010)
*2008 ''Chairman Mao Badges: Symbols and Slogans of the Cultural Revolution'' (2008)
*2008 ''Handbook to the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the UK'' (co-ed. with John Perkins, 2008)
*2007 ''Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences'' (co-ed. with Eva Apor, 2007), and its ''Supplement'' (co-ed. with Eva Apor, 2009)
*2007 ''Textiles from Dunhuang in UK Collections'' (co-ed. with Zhao Feng and others, 2007)
*2004 ''Money on the Silk Road: The Evidence from Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800, with a catalogue of the coins collected by Sir Aurel Stein'' (2004)
*2004 ''Sir Aurel Stein in The Times'' (ed., 2004)

Book-length translations (novels)

*2022 ''Dinner for Six'', by Lu Min, co-translated with Nicky Harman (Balestier Press, 2022) -- 鲁敏：《六人晚餐》
*2021 ''Dragonfly Eyes'', by Cao Wenxuan (Walker Books, 2021) -- 曹文轩：《蜻蜓眼》
*2017 ''The Ventriloquist's Daughter'', by Lin Man-Chiu (Balestier Press, 2017) -- 林满秋：《腹语师的女儿》
*2015 ''Bronze and Sunflower'', by Cao Wenxuan (Walker Books, UK, 2015; Candlewick Press, USA, 2016) -- 曹文轩：《青铜葵花》
*2012 ''Jackal and Wolf'', by Shen Shixi (Egmont, UK, 2012) -- 沈石溪：《红豺》

References

External links

Helen Wang - British Museum staff pageHelen Wang on AcademiaChinese Money MattersHelen Wang on Paper RepublicChinese Books for Young Readers

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Helen
1965 births
Living people
Employees of the British Museum
Winners of the Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation
Chen Bochui Children's Literature Award winners
English numismatists
Women numismatists
British translators
Chinese–English translators
Literary translators
Alumni of SOAS University of London
Beijing Language and Culture University alumni
British curators
Chinese numismatics