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Tiffany Tsao: Giving outsiders a voice
Through translating and writing, Tiffany Tsao aims to put Indonesian literature, and her own novels, on the world stage.
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Woman of letter: Tiffany Tsao is an accomplished author and literary translator who has made several works of Indonesian literature globally accessible by translating them into English. (Courtesy of Leah Diprose/-)
Growing up, Tiffany Tsao was never in one place long enough to call it home.
Her nomadic upbringing had her and her family living in the United States, Singapore and Indonesia and being an American citizen of Indonesian-Chinese descent, she not only found it difficult to establish a physical home, but a cultural one as well.
Whenever anyone asked where she was from, she did not know exactly how to respond.
“I had to decide what kind of answer to give — the short story or the longer one,” Tiffany told The Jakarta Post via email. “Did I want to explain that I was technically a US citizen? Or that my parents were both ethnic Chinese, but more specifically, part of the Chinese diaspora to Indonesia?”
Nowadays, Tiffany is an accomplished literary translator and writer, and her diverse career and accomplishments are a direct byproduct of her childhood.
Her parents emphasized her Chinese roots more than her Indonesian ones, but when she met and mingled with Chinese-Americans, she did not feel the kinship she was hoping to find.
When she told people she was Singaporean, it prompted even more questions and led to Tiffany’s ultimate conundrum.
