Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Laureate: China Media’s Initial Reactions
http://bruce-humes.com/archives/9931
Given China’s Nobel complex, it’s always interesting to see how the media reports on the newest winners. Year after year, those trouble-makers in Stockholm put the spotlight on the wrong sort of people, such as China’s own Liu Xiaobo (now serving time in a Chinese prison), Gao Xingjian — the China-born-and-raised author the state refuses to recognize as Chinese — and foreigners such as dissident writer Herta Müller, who wrote about the gulags.
So what is China’s media saying about Belarus’ 斯韦特兰娜·阿列克谢耶维奇 (Svetlana Alexievich)? It’s still early days, and we can expect more reportage and commentary soon. But that’s what makes the initial pronouncements significant; the state’s cultural spin doctors may not yet be sure how politically correct — or incorrect — she is.
Includes links to free excerpts from her Boys in Zinc, Voices from Chernobyl and The Wondrous Deer of the Eternal Hunt.
Comments
Man Asian Literary prize winning Chinese author Bi Feiyu (毕飞宇) is perhaps the first well-known writer to speak out about Alexievich’s award and writing.
In 毕飞宇：今年的诺奖不是一个冷门 , he confirms that in his eyes “non-fiction" writing — he doesn't use the sensitive “oral history” term — is an important form of literature, and he praises her for the years of research that she devotes to each of her books.
Tellingly, he does not mention the name of a single past or current Chinese practitioner of the arts of oral history storytelling or investigative journalism. That is not surprising, because the Chinese authorities actively discourage both. Most recently, the latter has been done most effectively by broadcasting “confessions” of zealous journalists who have allegedly crossed this or that red line. Doing fieldwork and documenting the experiences of the common people via one-on-one interviews can also create a lot of problems for those who engage in it. Just ask Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao, whose A Survey of Chinese Peasants(中国农民调查) was banned, and saw the authors taken to court for libel.
Commenting on the Nobel Prize for Literature is an art in and of itself in China. I recall how when exiled Chinese writer Gao Xingjian (高行健) was awarded the prize in 2000 — a fact that was not widely reported on the Chinese internet for three days — a host of famous authors were asked for their reaction. Several said they had never even heard of him, which effectively hit two birds with one stone. On the one hand, it showed they weren’t reading reactionary writers like Gao; on the other, in a more subtle manner it conveyed to the public that Gao was a nobody, and his selection simply a Western scheme to throw mud in China’s face.
Bruce Humes, October 12, 2015, 4:04a.m.
At least four of her books have been translated into Chinese.
Anna Gustafsson Chen, October 14, 2015, 5:04a.m.