Writing, Philosophy, Translation & Publishing
Hello. I’m Will Buckingham (白忠修). I’m a writer, philosopher, translator, and publisher from the UK, based between Dundee, Scotland, and the south of Taiwan. I am also Professor of Social Sciences and Humanities at Parami University, Myanmar.
Writing
My writing spans nonfiction, travel writing, fiction, children’s books, and philosophy for both an academic and popular market. I have been translated into multiple languages, including Chinese, Korean, Persian, Finnish, German, Turkish and French.
My most recent book was Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connection in a Divided World (Granta 2021/2), a BBC Radio4 Book of the Week. This book drew on my PhD research to explore the central role of hospitality in human life, and the often troubled and complex relationships we have with strangers.
You can read more about my books here.
My Academic Work
I hold a PhD in philosophy, and an MA in anthropology. For my PhD, I explored the complex role of narrative in the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, and asked about the role that storytelling can play as a phenomenology of ethics. I have also published in the field of Museum Studies, working to complete the late Dr Elee Kirk’s research in Snapshots of Museum Experience.
As well as writing academically, I write popular philosophy. My little book on the philosophies of happiness from Icon Books is still going strong after a decade and a half. And I was content advisor and contributor to DK’s bestselling The Philosophy Book, which to date has sold more than seven million copies globally.
I am currently working on two philosophy-adjacent projects. One is a book that explores the philosophical underpinnings and contemporary applications of Liu Xie’s medieval classic “The Heart of Literature and the Carving of Dragons” (Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍). And the second is a book that attempts to make sense of the ongoing global obsession with divination, exploring divination as a way of navigating through some of the perplexities of human choice.
University Teaching
I have worked in universities across the world. I am currently Professor of Social Sciences and Humanities at Parami University, Myanmar. I have also been Associate Professor of Writing and Creativity at De Montfort University (UK), and in 2015-6, was Visiting Associate Professor in the College of Literature and Journalism at Sichuan University (China).
I have worked as a curriculum advisor for institutions as varied as the Chinbridge Institute (Myanmar), the Open College of the Arts (UK), and Mote Oo Education (Myanmar), and been visiting lecturer at Sofia University, the École des Beaux-Arts Nantes-Metropole, and at universities in Bulgaria, Taiwan, and across the UK.
Translation
I am a translator from Mandarin and Taiwanese to English. I regularly work with Books from Taiwan, the government-run scheme to bring Taiwanese literature to global audiences. I have also worked on projects with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature, with the National Taiwan Museum, and with the Dushu Awards, Taiwan. I have also translated a book-length poetry collection by contemporary Chinese poet Ningli Deng (邓宁立) from Simplified Mandarin Chinese to English. I also translated from Taiwanese to English in the acclaimed collection Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic (Wind&Bones Books 2025)
In 2026, I was one of three joint winners of the Taiwan-Ireland Poetry Translation Competition, translating the work of Jocelyn Wen (溫若喬) from Taiwanese to English.
Publishing
With my collaborator, Dr Hannah Stevens, I am co-director of Wind&Bones CIC, which is the home of the imprint Wind&Bones Books. We publish a growing list of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and work in translation.
Wind&Bones Books is a part of a broader series of literature projects that Wind&Bones carries out across the world. We have worked with women survivors of domestic abuse in Bulgaria. We have drawn up manifestos for future food policy with farmers and food producers in rural Ireland. We have worked with refugee groups in Greece. We have run workshops with marginalised young people in the Scottish city of Dundee. In Myanmar, we were consultants for Mote Oo education, and undertook an eight month writing residency at the Parami Institute in Yangon. We have also been writers in residence at the Sofia Literature and Translation House, Bulgaria, the Nanning Literary House (南寧文學·家), Tainan, and the Taiwan Literature Base. We regularly give talks in universities.
