As part of a global celebration of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death, the British Council and Nha Nam Culture and Communication JSC launch Shakespeare Lives in Sonnets mini-competition. The challenge is to translate a Shakespeare’s sonnet into Vietnamese.
The mini-competition runs from 20 July to 31 August 2018, and attracts more than 250 entries from participants who are range from 13 to 65 years old living across Vietnam. Sonnet number 18 is obviously the preferred ones by participants but in total there are more than 40 different Sonnets are translated. Not only provide a high quality translation but some of the translators has creatively transform Sonnets into Vietnamese classic poetic form i.e. Lục bát, thơ Năm chữ…
Moreover through the competition, we have the opportunity to know readers, teachers, students who is attracted by Shakespeare and is spreading their passion to others by their own and interesting ways. For example, a Hanoian female teacher has illustrated some interesting phrases coined by William Shakespeare with lovely drawings. Please share us more if you are inspired by Shakespeare’s works.
We do hope that our activities will make you reassess your perceptions of Shakespeare and provide new inspiration to engage with his works as they continue to grow in popularity internationally, thanks often to their continuing engagement with social issues and the influence they’ve had on the English language.
We are pleased to announce the final result as follows
The first prize – Nguyen Luu Thai Thuan, Sonnet 12
The second prize – Dang Thu Thuy, Sonnet 99
The third prize – Bui Anh Toan, Sonnet 18