Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Fiona Sze-Lorrain (born 1980) is a French writer, musician, poet, literary translator, and editor.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Fiona Sze-Lorrain in 2017
Born	1980 (age 42–43) Singapore
Occupation	Writer, poet, translator, editor, harpist
Language	English, French, Chinese
Nationality	French
Education	Columbia University (B.A.) New York University (M.A.) Paris-Sorbonne University (Ph.D., French) École Normale de Musique de Paris
Spouse	Philippe Lorrain

Early life and education

Born in Singapore, Sze-Lorrain grew up trilingual and has lived mostly in Paris and New York City. She spent her childhood in a hybrid of cultures, and her formative years in the United States and France.^[1] She began studying classical piano and guzheng at a young age. A graduate of Columbia University, she obtained her master's degree from New York University and attended the École Normale de Musique de Paris before earning a PhD in French from the Paris-Sorbonne University.

Work

Sze-Lorrain's work involves fiction, poetry, translation, music, theater, and the visual arts. She writes mainly in English, and translates from Chinese and French. She also works with Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. She has written for venues related to fashion journalism, music and art criticism, and dramaturgy.^[2]

In 2007, Sze-Lorrain worked with Gao Xingjian on a book of photography, essays, and poetry based on his film Silhouette/Shadow.^[3]

Through Mark Strand, whom she would later translate into French,^[4] she found her poetic vocation.^{[clarification needed]} Sze-Lorrain's debut poetry collection, Water the Moon, appeared in 2010, followed by My Funeral Gondola in 2013.^[5] Her third collection, The Ruined Elegance, was published by Princeton University Press in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets in 2016 and was named one of Library Journal's Best Books in Poetry for 2015.^[6] It was also a finalist for the 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.^[7]

Published during the COVID-19 pandemic, her fourth collection Rain in Plural (Princeton University Press, 2020) contains many "poems that resonate with a political undertone, and they often suggest in the midst of great threats we persist and continue our important work, aware we alone are not the only or even the most vulnerable. The poems care about the larger world and our current crises."^[8]

In response to the pandemic in Paris, Sze-Lorrain wrote a setting of new poems The Year of the Rat, set to music by Peter Child for unaccompanied voices, and virtually premiered in February 2021 by the solo artists of the Cantata Singers and Ensemble in Boston.^[9][10]

Sze-Lorrain published Dear Chrysanthemums (Scribner), a novel in stories, in 2023. Praised in The New York Times Book Review as "nimble, evocative," it is set in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, and New York, following a cast of Asian women from 1946 to 2016.^[11] It is longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.^[12]

Sze-Lorrain studies calligraphy and ink. Her poems and translations, handwritten in ink, were exhibited alongside ink drawings by Fritz Horstman from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in the art show, A Blue Dark, at The Institute Library (New Haven) in 2019.^[13][14]

Critical response

The Rumpus said of her writing that it "serves as a vital midwife for the greater global understanding that will one day be born from today’s contracting and relaxing tensions between differing religions, cultures, and languages."^[15]

Prairie Schooner describes her work as an "arc" that "navigates the sense of otherness" with poems that "burst at the seams with the customs, gastronomy, ancestry, literature, and art of the two cultures."^[16]

Publishers Weekly calls her novel in stories "graceful" and "this author is one to watch" as she "effortlessly evokes the spirit of each setting" and "imbues her characters with haunting melancholy."^[17]

Mekong Review wrote that her fiction "resonates with a rich and efficient prosody. The narrative structure is creative, with each story placing an increasingly complete puzzle on top of the last."^[18]

Translation

Sze-Lorrain is a translator of contemporary American, French, and Chinese poetry.^[19] Her work was shortlisted for the 2020 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry^[20] and the 2016 Best Translated Book Award,^[21] and longlisted for the 2014 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.^[22] She is a co-founder of Cerise Press (2009–13),^[23][24] a corresponding editor of Mānoa (2012–14), and an editor at Vif Éditions.

Residencies and fellowships

The recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, Ledig House, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, she is the inaugural writer-in-residence at MALBA in Buenos Aires.^[25] She has also been a visiting poet at various colleges and universities in United States and Europe. She is a 2019-20 Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination.^[26]

Music

As a classical zheng harpist, Sze-Lorrain has performed worldwide.^[27]

Personal life

Sze-Lorrain lives in Paris with her husband Philippe Lorrain, former art director, independent publisher.^[28]

Publications

Novel

• Dear Chrysanthemums, 2023. ISBN 978-1-668-01298-7

Poetry

• Rain in Plural, 2020. ISBN 978-0-691-20356-0
• The Ruined Elegance, 2016. ISBN 978-0-691-16769-5
• Invisible Eye, 2015. ISBN 978-2-9541146-3-7
• My Funeral Gondola, 2013. ISBN 978-0-98339198-2
• Water the Moon, 2010. ISBN 978-1-934851-12-8

Chapbook

• Not Meant as Poems, 2018.

Collaboration

• The Year of the Rat, set to music by Peter Child, premiered by Amy Lieberman, Xiao Shi, Sheryl Krevsky Elkin, and Karyl Ryczek from the Cantata Singers and Ensemble, 2021.
• A Blue Dark with Fritz Horstman, 2019. ISBN 978-2-954-11465-1

Translations

• Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm: Poems and Essays by Yu Xiuhua, 2021. ISBN 978-166-260-047-0
• Green Mountain by Yang Jian, 2020. ISBN 978-1-937385-36-1
• Karma by Yin Lichuan, 2020. ISBN 978-1-948800-29-7
• My Mountain Country by Ye Lijun, 2019. ISBN 978-0-9992613-4-7
• Trace by Yu Xiang, 2017.
• Sea Summit by Yi Lu, 2016. ISBN 978-1-571-31476-5
• Chariots of Women by Amang, 2016. ISBN 978-9-869-29840-7
• A Tree Planted in Summer by Ling Yu, 2015. ISBN 978-2-9541146-4-4
• Writing before Sleep by Na Ye, 2015. ISBN 978-7-5001433-1-4
• The City Is a Novel by photographer Alexey Titarenko, with essays by Gabriel Bauret, Sean Corcoran, and Brett Abbott, 2015. ISBN 978-88-6208-414-7
• Canyon in the Body by Lan Lan, 2014. ISBN 978-1-938890-01-7
• Nails by Lan Lan, 2013. ISBN 978-962-996-627-0
• I Can Almost See the Clouds of Dust by Yu Xiang, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9832970-9-3
• Wind Says by Bai Hua, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9832970-6-2
• Presque invisible (Almost Invisible) by Mark Strand, 2012. ISBN 978-2-9541146-1-3
• Low Key by Yu Xiang, 2011. ISBN 978-962-996-532-7
• Mingus, méditations by Auxeméry, 2011
• "Ghérasim Luca Portfolio" by Ghérasim Luca in Poetry International, 2010. ISBN 978-187-969-193-3
• "The Way of the Wandering Bird" by Gao Xingjian, with Ned Burgess, in Silhouette/Shadow: The Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian, 2007. ISBN 978-981-05-9207-3

Edited/Co-edited

• Starry Island: New Writing from Singapore, 2014. ISBN 978-0-8248-4797-5
• On Freedom: Spirit, Art, and State, 2013. ISBN 978-0-8248-3855-3
• Sky Lanterns: New Poetry from China, Formosa, and Beyond, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8248-3698-6
• Cerise Press: A Journal of Literature, Arts & Culture, Vol. 1 Issue 1-Vol. 5 Issue 13, 2009-2013. ISSN 1946-5262
• Silhouette/Shadow: The Cinematic Art of Gao Xingjian, 2007. ISBN 978-981-05-9207-3
• Interculturalism: Exploring Critical Issues, 2004. ISBN 978-1-904710-07-3

CD

• Une seule prise (In One Take), 2010. UPC 3-760201-400005

Film

• Rain in Plural . . . and Beyond, 2021. Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Awards and honors

• 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlisted
• 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry Finalist
• 2020 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry Finalist
• 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
• 2016 Best Translated Book Award Finalist
• 2014 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation Longlisted
• 2014 New Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist
• 2011 Eric Hoffer Book Award Honorable Mention

References

1. "Theme and Variations of an Afterlife: An Interview with Fiona Sze-Lorrain". TriQuarterly.
2. . Archived from the original on 2014-12-23. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
3. "The Self In 'Silhouette'". Newsweek. December 15, 2007.
4. "Bibliographie nationale française BnF".
5. "Los Angeles Review of Books". 29 August 2014.
6. Hoffert, Barbara (2015-11-15). . Archived from the original on 15 November 2015. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
7. "Here are the 2016 L.A. Times Book Prize winners". Los Angeles Times. 2016-04-10. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
8. "Rain in Plural".
9. "Cantata Singers 2020-21 Season: February Digital Presentation" – via www.youtube.com.
10. Carmichael, Michelle (2014-11-08). "Peter Child". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
11. "Newly Published, From Rural Childhood to Anti-Ableist Parenting". The New York Times. 2023-04-26. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
12. 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Longlist, by By Grace Rosean and Biz Hyzy. | Booklist Online.
13. Haven, Arts Council of Greater New. "Dark Matters". www.newhavenarts.org.
14. "Art Of Darkness | New Haven Independent". www.newhavenindependent.org. June 7, 2019.
15. "The Ruined Elegance by Fiona Sze-Lorrain". The Rumpus.net. 2015-10-30. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
16. Cook, Christina (June 3, 2011). "Water the Moon (review)". Prairie Schooner. 85 (2): 158–163. doi:10.1353/psg.2011.0045. S2CID 72706490 – via Project MUSE.
17. "Dear Chrysanthemums by Fiona Sze-Lorrain". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
18. Review 2, Mekong (2023-05-23). "No fragile flowers, these". Mekong Review. Retrieved 2023-11-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
19. Huang, Yunte, ed. (2016). The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature: Writings from the Mainland in the Long Twentieth Century. New York: W. W. Norton. pp. xi.
20. Productions, Ti-Jean (2020-05-14). "ANNOUNCING THE SHORT LIST FOR THE DEREK WALCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRY". Derek Walcott. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
21. "And the Finalists for the Best Translated Book Awards Are..." April 19, 2016.
22. "Longlists Announced for the 2014 PEN Literary Awards". May 5, 2014.
23. "Cerise Press › Cerise Press: About". www.cerisepress.com.
24. npadmin (2013-07-09). "Cerise Press Final Issue". NewPages.com. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
25. Blanc, Natalia (15 June 2018). "Fiona Sze-Lorrain, la poeta que llegó de Singapur, es fan de Pizarnik y toca el arpa - LA NACION". La Nación – via La Nacion (Argentina).
26. "Institute for Ideas and Imagination Announces New Class of Fellows". Columbia News. 6 June 2023.
27. . Archived from the original on 2014-12-23. Retrieved 2014-12-23.
28. "[anthologie permanente] Nathaniel Tarn". Poezibao.

External links

• Fiona Sze-Lorrain's website
• Vif Éditions
• Review of Water the Moon in Open Letters Monthly 2014-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
• Review of My Funeral Gondola in The Rumpus
• About Fiona Sze-Lorrain and Translation
• Interview with Fiona Sze-Lorrain
• Sze-Lorrain's Translation of Yu Xiang's I Can Almost See the Clouds of Dust 2014-12-23 at the Wayback Machine in Time Out Beijing