Eleanor Goodman (born 1979; zh, c=顾爱玲, p=Gu Ailing) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, writer, and translator of

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

. Her 2014 translation of the poems of

Wang Xiaoni Wang Xiaoni (; born 1955) is a Chinese poet. Xiaoni graduated from Jilin University in 1982 where she was a literary editor and worked for a film studio. In 1985, she settled in Shenzhen and became a professor at Hainan University. She has publis ...

, ''Something Crosses My Mind'' was an international finalist for the

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...

and a winner of the

Lucien Stryk Lucien Stryk (April 7, 1924 – January 24, 2013) was an American poet, translator of Buddhist literature and Zen poetry, and former English professor at Northern Illinois University (NIU). Biography Stryk was born in Poland on April 7, 1924, a ...

American Literary Translators Association The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) is an organization in the United States dedicated to literary translation. ALTA promotes literary translation through its annual ALTA conference and year-round events structured around the creatio ...

Prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

for excellence in translation.

Biography and works

Goodman is a 2001 graduate of

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

, with degrees in English and music, and a masters degree in poetry from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

. 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." Reviews of the work cited its "brilliant translation" and said that Goodman was "a wonderful poet." Reviews appeared in the journal
Cha
' and mainstream Chinese newspapers,

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remaine ...

(also calling it a "brilliant translation") and Caixin Online. Feature articles on her work have appeared in Chinese in China News, The Paper, Paper Republic and LifeWeek. The work was previously awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and went on to win the

Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize is a prize that recognizes the best translation into English of book-length texts of Asian poetry or Zen Buddhism. It was established by an anonymous donor in 2010, and is named for Lucien Stryk, the America ...

in 2015. Goodman's first book of original poetry, ''Nine Dragon Island'' (Zephyr, 2016) was a finalist for the 2014 Drunken Boat poetry award. 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." Short stories by Goodman have appeared in

Fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

and other journals. She has been interviewed in the L.A. Review of Books,

Poetry International Poetry International may refer to: * Poetry International Web, a webzine and poetry archive of the Poetry International Foundation * Poetry International Festival, an annual poetry festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands * Poetry International, an annua ...

, an
The Shanghai Literary Review
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." 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'', the ''Asia-Pacific Journal'', and ''The New York Times''. 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. In 2013, Goodman was awarded a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

for research in China. She has also had residencies and visiting artist appointments at the

Vermont Studio Center The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is a non-profit arts organization located in the town of Johnson, Vermont. It conducts the largest fine arts and writing residency program in the United States, with a significant population of international artis ...

and the

American Academy in Rome The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome, Italy. The academy is a member of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers. History 19th century In 1893, a group of American architect ...

. She is a research associate at Harvard's

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is a post-graduate research center promoting the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. The center hosts and organizes academic activities, provides re ...

. Goodman has written for many venues, including The

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the genera ...

the Los Angeles Review of BooksSupChina
and

ChinaFile The Asia Society is a 501(c)(3) organization that focuses on educating the world about Asia. It has several centers in the United States (Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle) and around the world (Hong Ko ...

. Goodman was the recipient of a 2022

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

br>Translation Fellowship
for her translation of Zang Di's ''Elegies for My Son.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodman, Eleanor Living people Chinese–English translators American women poets Amherst College alumni Boston University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences alumni 1979 births 21st-century American women