World of China’s elite translators

: Endless cups of coffee, long hours at office for days, and working in tandem with a group of elite Chinese translators.

That’s what British citizen Holly Snape went through to complete the official translation of President Xi Jinping’s 200-minute speech from Mandarin to English before he delivered it at the Communist Party’s congress.

It was a key speech (or a work report) at an important Communist Party event, closely tracked, and it was Snape and her team’s English translation, circulated soon after Xi delivered the speech, that was widely picked up and quoted worldwide.

It helped that all the effort was strung together – as Snape, 35, told HT – with a sense of “mission” and her “love” for Chinese society and, of course, language.

“It was a lot of hours and a lot of coffee. You know, it took a real sense of willpower, a real sense of dedication and I would say there was a sense of mission because I was part of a team and it wasn’t a big team you know…part of a very close team that worked together…and I think that’s key…these were incredibly skilful translators,” Snape told Hindustan Times after a rare interaction with a small group of journalists organised by the State Council, China’s cabinet.

The work on the long speech began a month before October 18, the day Xi delivered it at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

A draft in Chinese was circulated among select translators at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau in September. Snape and her colleagues got less than two weeks to give final shape to the speech in their respective languages.

BEIJING