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Tiffany Tsao

Tiffany is a translator of literary fiction from Indonesian into English. Her translation of Intan Paramaditha's Night of a Thousand Hells has been longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature. She is the author of But Won’t I Miss Me (HarperVia, 2026) and The Majesties (Atria Books, 2020; originally published in Australia as Under Your Wings with Penguin Random House in 2018). She is also the author of the cult-favourite, the Oddfits fantasy trilogy – so far, The Oddfits and The More Known World. 

For her translation of Budi Darma’s People from Bloomington, she was awarded the 2023 PEN Translation Prize and the 2023 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize. Her translation of Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Happy Stories, Mostly was awarded the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses and longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize. Born in the United States and of Chinese-Indonesian descent, her family returned to Southeast Asia when she was 3 years old. She spent her formative years in Singapore and Indonesia before moving to the US for university. She has a B.A. in English literature from Wellesley College and a PhD in English literature from UC-Berkeley. She lives on Cammeraygal land in Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children.

Articles by Tiffany Tsao

Norman Erikson Pasaribu and Tiffany Tsao on translating via WhatsApp, green flying saucers, and queer liberation
Norman Erikson Pasaribu is a poet and writer. His first poetry collection, Sergius Mencari Bacchus, was published in 2016 in his native Indonesia. Norman was approached by writer and translator Tiffany Tsao, and the pair then spent three years working together on Sergius Seeks Bacchus (2019), an English translation of the Indonesian collection which went on to win a PEN Translates Award. Norman and Tiffany are working together on translating Tiffany’s English-language novel, Under Your Wings, into Indonesian, and have developed a close, collaborative working friendship. They corresponded by email with Wasafiri’s Emily Mercer.
Accountability, Liminality, and (Mis)Representations in Translation: Khairani Barokka Interviews Tiffany Tsao
Khairani Barokka, author and former editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, corresponded with Tiffany Tsao, fiction writer and translator of Indonesian literature, for Wasafiri 116: Shorelines: South East Asia and the Littoral.
Extract: Night of a Thousand Hells by Intan Paramaditha, trans. by Stephen Epstein, Tiffany Tsao
Read an extract from the forthcoming feminist gothic novel, Night of a Thousand Hells, by Intan Paramaditha. Translated by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao, and blending Indonesian folklore, Islamic mysticism, horror, and political reckoning, this is the first book translated from Indonesian that has been longlisted for a National Book Award. Set across Indonesia, the US, and Australia, the novel follows three sisters, the youngest of whom becomes a suicide bomber. The surviving sisters must then face hidden truths in their family history.  
Bloomsbury Drama
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