the 11th Helen Snow Translation Award Competition

中国籍选手切勿在本赛道报名！ 

Helen Foster Snow (HFS) was a famous American writer, journalist, social activist, and dedicated friend of the Chinese people. In order to promote mutual understanding and friendship between China and the United States and its people, to carry forward Helen Foster Snow’s legacy of “bridging”, and to raise interest in translationamong college students and to find talented young translators, China’s Shaanxi Translation Association (STA) established the “Helen Snow Translation Award” in 2002. The STA has successfully sponsored seven previous competitions nationwide in China.

Competition Committee

Sponsored by：Helen Foster Snow Foundation

                               Southern Utah University

                               Edgar Snow Center of China, Peking University

          Northwest University, China   

                               Shaanxi Translation Association, China

Supported  by：Edgar and Helen Snow Studies Center

Enclosed: Contestant Information Form

Competition Sponsors

The 11th HFS Translation Award Competition is scheduled to be held from March 30^th to July 2^nd, 2024. It is jointly sponsored by the Helen Foster Snow Foundation, Southern Utah University, the Edgar Snow Center of China in Peking University, Northwest University (NWU), and the Shaanxi Translators Association in China. 

Competition Divisions

The competition is designed to cover English-Chinese bilingual translation. It consists of two divisions, namely the English-Chinese (E-C) Translation and the Chinese-English (C-E) Translation. Both the English and Chinese passages to be translated will be articles written by or about Helen Foster Snow. The guidelines and the two passages are available on the competition official website and the Helen Foster Snow Foundation website. 

To be eligible, the contestants must be students enrolled at higher learning institutions in China or any other countries or regions. This can include graduate students, undergraduates, and junior college students. Participation fee is eight U.S. dollars, which will contribute to the seed money of the Helen Foster Snow Foundation’s initiatives of building bridges of friendship and understandings through its various programs and projects.

Competition Awards

Each of the translation divisions offers 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd awards respectively, plus an Award of Excellence. Certificates of Honor will be awarded to all the award winners. The name list of all winners will be released on September 21, 2024, along with the benchmark translation of the two passages produced by leading professionals in the field.

Sothern Utah University offers two tuition scholarships for the top Chinese winners in the competition. Two finalists will be selected from among the Chinese recipients of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd award winners by means of a supplementary interview by the Edgar and Helen Snow Studies Center. Sothern Utah University will make the final decision and notify the scholarship recipients. The scholarship recipients will study at Southern Utah University for one semester.

Northwest University in China offers a tuition scholarship to study Chinese Language and Culture to the top American winners in this competition. The candidate recipients will be selected from among the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd award winners through a supplementary interview conducted by the School of International Education at Northwest University. Northwest University will select qualified candidates and offer either one-year or one-semester tuition scholarships to the candidates. The scholarship is valid within two years after the candidates receive the letter of scholarship grant. The relevant overseas study information for NWU is available on its official website: http://sie.nwu.edu.cn/ 

Competition Evaluation

It is our imperative to carry forward Helen Snow’s code of honor, “honesty, faith, and seeking truth from facts.” To this end, it is expected that all entrants guarantee the work they submit to the competition is their own. Supplementary tests and interviews will be arranged for the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Grade Award winners. 

The Shaanxi Translation Association (STA) is responsible for all the necessary communications regarding this competition. The Awards Committee, which is selected by the STA Sub-committee for Literature Translation, is composed of noted experts in foreign language education, translation, and literary review. Evaluation of the English-Chinese and the Chinese-English papers will be carried out separately by two different groups under the Awards Committee. The competition is supervised by the Edgar & Helen Snow Studies Center under authorization from the Helen Foster Snow Foundation in the United States.

Submission of Entries

Each contestant is free to participate in one or both divisions of the competition. Contestants are only allowed to submit the translation paper once. No entry can be submitted and then resubmitted in a revised version.

Translation papers should be typed on A4 paper using either Times New Roman or Song font in double-spaced 12-point-type. Contestants are not allowed to indicate their name, gender, or school on the paper in any way or via any form. Otherwise, the translation paper faces automatic disqualification. The contestant is required to fill in his/her personal information on the registration form. The organizers thereby ensure that the judges receive all entries anonymously.

The contestant’s translation paper and personal information must be emailed in PDF format to the official email of the competition- helensnow1937@163.com. It is suggested that the email is titled: contestant’s name + E-C/C-E for more efficient filing and processing.

The deadline for submitting papers is on July, 2^nd 2024.