From October 25 to November 22, 2025, the four-week Sun Yat-sen University Writers' Residency, organized by Professor Fan Dai of the School of International Studies, was held in Yangshuo and Zhuhai. Concurrently, Creative Writing and Translation course overlapped the first week of the Residency. Designed to provide writers with a dedicated space for reading and writing, the Residency sought to foster global literary exchange while giving students the opportunity to translate contemporary works and to consult the writers.
Restarted after a five-year hiatus, the sixth Sun Yat-sen University Writers' Residency welcomed the Australian writer Julienne van Loon, an associate professor of Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne, and the Spanish writer Cristina Sánchez-Andrade, an associate professor of Creative Writing and Literature at the Complutense University. In the first week of the Residency, the two writers were joined by the students of the Creative Writing and Translation course. The students worked to improve the Chinese translation drafts of the two novels they had previously translated—Julienne van Loon's Instructions for a Steep Decline and Cristina Sánchez-Andrade's The Winterlings. During the week in Yangshuo, the students participated in in-depth editing sessions involving peer review, discussions and consultation with teachers. Professor Dai Fan, Associate Professors Bin Luo and Guixia Xie, together with Siyi Zhang, provided feedbacks and guidance on the students' translations, after which the writers responded unsolved issues in the translations
In addition to the translation work, a series of cultural activities have enriched the course and the Residency. Students and writers joined a local Double Ninth Festival celebration, where village volunteers performed for elderly residents from the surrounding communities. Local calligraphers and painters visited the Residency for a session on the traditional Chinese painting, doing Chinese calligraphy with ink and painting with colored ink on rice paper and fan surfaces on the spot. Students and teachers, together with the writers, observed the creation process from start to finish. Another highlight was a mountain song gathering, where four celebrated local singers visited the Residency. The singers introduced the origins of mountain songs, presented several melodies, and performed call-and-response singing, giving Julienne van Loon, Cristina Sánchez-Andrade, and Mao Lvming from the University of Utah first-hand insight into Guangxi's musical heritage.
After completing three weeks of writing, the two writers delivered two lectures on the Zhuhai campus: one to English majors entitled "On the Essay Form, Literary and Personal" and the other to Spanish majors entitled "Writing with the Five Senses." Subsequently, Creative Writing and Translation course concluded with student presentations on what they had learned during the Residency, including reports on their reflections on translation.
By integrating writing practice, cultural exchange, writer-translator interaction, and teaching activities, the Sun Yat-sen University Writers' Residency represents a unique approach to English teaching and learning, creating a mutually beneficial environment for both writers and students.
Source: School of International Studies
