true tone translation

Self-introduction

Hi, I’m Christopher MacDonald, pictured at the top of the page hosting the launch of The Book of Beijing at the Manchester Literary Festival in October 2023, with authors Wen Zhen and Gu Shi.

I began as a translator and interpreter in Taiwan and the PRC during the 1990s, and in 2019, after a long spell working in other fields, returned full-time to the translation profession. I am now based in South Wales in the UK, and focus primarily on literary, academic and sustainability translation.

I received the Comma Press Emerging Translator award in 2019 for my translation of ‘The Story of Ah-Ming’ by Wang Zhanhei, and in 2020 my translation of ‘12 Todays’ by Temu Suyan was Commended in the Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation. In December 2024 I was co-winner, along with Alice Shyun-Yih Lin and Kiryl Sharkouski, of the Annual Taiwan/Ireland Poetry Translation Competition, run by Trinity Centre for Literary & Cultural Translation and the National Museum of Taiwan Literature.

2025 will see publication by Cambridge University Press of my 230,000-word translation, produced in collaboration with the author, of Institutional Genes: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins of China’s Institutions.

I’m also a DPSI-qualified public service interpreter, and have interpreted for the UK courts, police, local authorities and the NHS. I hold an MA (Translation & Interpretation) and an MSc (Sustainability & Adaptation), and am a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Society of Authors — click on logos below.