Cindy Carter

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Cindy Carter is a Beijing-based translator of Chinese fiction, film, essay and poetry. She studied Japanese at U.C. San Diego and lived in Osaka for three years before coming to China as a language student in 1996. Since beginning her translation career in 1999, she has translated over forty independent Chinese films and documentaries and dozens of scripts, short stories, essays and poems. Her translation of Xiaolu Guo's novel Village of Stone (2004, Chatto & Windus, Random House, U.K.) was short-listed for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and long-listed for the IMPAC Prize.

Her recent translation projects include:

  • Yan Lianke's Dream of Ding Village, a novel about blood-selling and the AIDS epidemic in Henan Province (scheduled for publication in 2009 by Constable and Robinson, U.K.)

  • Yu Guangyi's Survival Song, a documentary about a family of hunter-trappers living in the wilds of Heilongjiang Province (Grand Prize winner, 5th China Independent Documentary Film Festival, Songzhuang, 2008; Grand Prize winner, Cinema Digital Seoul Festival, 2008; Selection, Vancouver Int'l Film Festival, 2008)

  • Huang Wenhai's Creatures of Politics, Voices of Conscience, a documentary about human rights and democracy activists in China (Worldwide premiere at the 2008 Venice Int'l Film Festival - under the Chinese title "Women"/我们)

November 2007

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Music matters too.

Literature matters; music matters, too.

Here are some of the best Chinese videos and concert performances I've seen.

Artist: PK 14

Song: Tamen

hysterical video that knows how to take the piss and employ stock footage

Artist: Second Hand Rose

Song: New Tricks

amazing performance by China's best drag band - Beijing CD Cafe Club 2003

Artist: Second Hand Rose

Song: Survival

in the mean streets (hutongs?) of Beijing, sometimes you just can't win

Artist: SUBS / Brain Failure

SUBS and Brain Failure at MIDI

MIDI music festival interview with SUBS,
live concert performances by SUBS and Brain Failure

Artist: Su Yang

Song: The Phoenix

live performance of gorgeous song
(there's an animated video too, but it lacks the appropriate pathos)

Artist: XTX and Cold Blooded Animal

Song: Who was it who brought me here?

Yunnan Snow Mountain Music Festival performance with gu zheng and ginormous kick-ass fog machines (in those misty mountain climes, fog machines seem a bit redundant, don't they?)

Artist: XTX

Songs: Living Underground and Circling Sun

live concert footage from Xiao Suo's memorial

By Cindy Carter, November 24, 2:24p.m.

4 comments

Some poetry by Gu Cheng

Just ran across some poems in the archives, early translations I thought I'd lost. The first three are from Gu Cheng's 2005 (posthumous) collection《走了一万一千里路》. The other poems are from a 1995 edition of Gu Cheng's collected works《顾城诗全编》- also posthumous. Pretty free-wheeling translations, but there are some good moments. I think there's something here everyone can joyfully disagree on...

Truisms

The vase says: I’m worth a thousand hammers.
The hammer says: I’ve smashed a hundred vases.

The artisan says: I’ve made a thousand hammers.
The master says: I’ve killed a hundred artisans.

The hammer says: I've bludgeoned one master to death.
The vase says: I now contain that master’s ashes.

More…

By Cindy Carter, November 12, 8:48a.m.

5 comments