By Nicky Harman, April 15, '16
For London folk: Centre of Taiwan Studies
"Masked Dolls" - An evening with the Taiwanese Author Shih Chiung-Yu.
28 April 2016, 7:00 PM, at Brunei Gallery, Room: B102, School of Oriental and African Studies, Malet Street, London WC1
By Eric Abrahamsen, April 13, '16
The big recent news in Chinese children's literature is Cao Wenxuan's winning of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize for Children's Literature". It's a big deal inside China, where the media closely watches the progress of the prize.
Like the Nobel, the prize is given to a writer for their entire oeuvre, not for any book in particular, but despite this everyone still points to works in particular. In this case, that's probably Bronze and Sunflower, translated by Helen Wang and published in the UK last year by Walker Books. In honor of the win, we conducted an email interview with Helen about her views on Cao's works (in case you didn't know, Helen is also one of the editors of Read Paper Republic, and is currently to be found representing PR at the London Book Fair). See below for the full interview.
Paper Republic is one of the three organisations shortlisted for the Literary Translation Initiative Award:
Paper Republic
Words Without Borders
Archipelago Books
Cut off my head and I’ll still go on talking, Lop off my arms and I’ll sock you another. Chop off my legs and I’ll carry on walking, Carve up my guts and I’ll put them together. […] To bath in hot oil is really quite nice, A warm tub that makes all the dirt gone.
–Journey to the West, Chapter 46 (translated by W.J.F. Jenner, Foreign Language Press)
So speaks Sun Wukong, better known in English as the Monkey King, after Monkey, British sinophile Arthur Waley’s enduring early 20th century translation of Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West 西游记. Thanks to Waley’s judicious to abridgement of the massive Ming dynasty novel into a much shorter and (arguably) more readable novel, for a time at least The Great Sage was able to enjoy an equal measure of fame both at home and abroad. Although the novel is less well known today, nearly a century later, Monkey has many ways found an even greater success—as a cartoon character.
To my knowledge, no systematic study of Monkey King comics, cartoons, animations, plays, live action TV dramas, movies, etc. has ever been attempted. Perhaps the task is too daunting, or perhaps it seems redundant, given the very ubiquity of Monkey King merchandise and media already flooding the Chinese marketplace–especially in year of monk-orological significance, Anno Simian. At times I even suspect that stronger emotions may be at play: as one friend (Chinese American, but also an American living in China) put it when I mentioned that I was writing a paper on the topic, “Oh god, which of the eight million versions are you going to do?”
IBBY is proud to announce the winners for the 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award – the world’s most prestigious children’s book award and the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award - awarded to two groups or institutions whose outstanding activities are judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading promotion programmes for children and young people.
Congratulations to Hans Christian Andersen Award Winners:
Author: Cao Wenxuan from China
Illustrator: Rotraut Susanne Berner from Germany
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 30, '16
Paper Republic is looking for an intern in Beijing to work with us on literary and publishing events this year, from late spring to early fall. Think you might be interested? Drop us a line!
In addition to our usual activities, Paper Republic is running two larger events this year, and need more hands on deck. In late June we’re hosting a publishing fellowship, where publishers and editors will come from around the world to spend a week in Beijing, getting to know Chinese writers and publishers. Then in late August is the Beijing International Book Fair, when we’ll be conducting a small literary festival as part of the Fair.
We need someone in Beijing with an interest (and preferably experience) in literature, publishing, and translation. We’re really hoping to find someone who is strong in both English and Chinese, but don’t mind what nationality you are. We need someone who’s organized, motivated and creative, and who thrives on the unexpected.
We need someone who can dedicate at least fifteen hours week to the job, preferably more, and who can join us at our office in Beijing at least two days a week.
Helping us plan literary and publishing events, arranging itineraries and schedules, writing news copy, liaising with publishers and editors, and picking famous writers up from the airport.
A fun working environment with entertaining co-workers, a chance to meet all manner of people, a small monthly stipend, letters of recommendation, good coffee, and some unique experiences.
If you think you fit the bill, and are available from around April to the end of August, get in touch with us at info@paper-republic.org. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Charles A. Laughlin and Liu Hongtao introduce By the River: Seven Novellas from Twenty-first Century China, curated by coeditor Liu Hongtao 刘洪涛, vol. 6 in the Chinese Literature Today book series at the University of Oklahoma Press.
Includes: Xu Zechen’s “Voice Change”, Chi Zijian’s “Flurry of Blessings” and Han Shaogong’s “Mountain Songs from the Heavens".
Much of what happens -- most of the 'action', it seems -- is pretty everyday; indeed, Ruined City is remarkable for its willingness to putter along through the everyday, in contrast to so much modern fiction that insists up spectacular and dramatic incident after incident. Here it goes so far that there's a great deal of discussion about (as well as going to) toilets -- from the city-planning stage (there's still a great reliance on public facilities in Xijing, and with the growth of the city a need for more to be built) to the domestic. From arranging meals and meetings to various small items different characters purchase, Ruined City offers an intimate account of what seem like the not too exciting lives of these characters. But that's not quite how it works out: going on at length does serve a purpose; Ruined City does add up to something more, its cumulative and final effect quietly devastating.
By David Haysom, March 20, '16
I find searching for ways to make my work more efficient to be one of the most effective and rewarding methods of procrastination. Here are a few of the apps, websites and pieces of machinery I’ve discovered on that quest.
"Ruined City is notable for its almost complete indifference to its historical moment. While the Cultural Revolution is referred to in places, it’s clear that Jia wants his characters to seem neither traumatized by nor interested in politics. They live in a tiny world of their own making and seem — like artists everywhere — to thrive on life’s small dissatisfactions. That may be the novel’s most shocking quality of all."
All this is understandable. Who wants to be the spoilsport to stand up and say that many pages of the Zibaldone were miserably translated and that to an extent the project was a missed opportunity? But I believe the question goes deeper than this and is perhaps symptomatic of the time we live in and the diminishing importance of the written word, and in particular of literature, in our society. Simply, many readers, many critics, don’t notice. Or if they do, don’t particularly care. They read for content. The clamor of idioms about us has become so loud that we hardly notice when a translation, or indeed any piece of prose, is cluttered with incongruities. In fact, the writer whose work was above all an achievement of style and linguistic density, an exploration of what could be done with the language, directed at a community who could understand the nature of the experiment—Joyce, Woolf, Gadda, Faulkner—is largely a creature of the past. And where, as in the case of the Zibaldone, the reader or critic finds sentences that are unreadable and quite likely skips or abandons the book, they imagine that this is because the original was of this nature and the translation necessarily impenetrable. They may even admire the translator for having got it into English at all.
Yan Lianke's The Four Books (四书) is one of 13 novels that has been longlisted for The Man Book International Prize.
Congrats to Yan Lianke and translator Carlos Rojas, who would split a hefty 50,000 pounds sterling if the book --- unpublished in the PRC, naturally --- wins.
By Helen Wang, March 7, '16
At the start of 2016, we decided to revisit the 2009 dream-list of untranslated Chinese novels recommended by the Paper Republic team. We wanted to see which of them had been translated (see update here), and to invite our readers to recommend titles for a new 2016 list.
Translators and agents, if you are working on samples, we’d like to add this information to the database – we can tag them as “excerpts” - you can search for a list of excerpts here. If you tell us that an "excerpt” is available from [a named person or job-title] at [literary agency], we can add this too! Think of it as free publicity!
By Bruce Humes, March 5, '16
"Depictions of homosexuality, extramarital affairs, underage love and the supernatural are no longer allowed in television dramas under new regulations in mainland China," according to a report at Hong Kong Free Press (New Rules).
These rules are apparently already coming into affect. According to WSJ's China RealTime, " 'Heroin' (also known as “Addiction” in Chinese), a 15-episode Web drama about romance among teenage boys, was earlier this week taken down from major Chinese video streaming sites." This suggests that the ban applies not just to TV.
Will this ban on the portrayal of homosexuality, and "other abnormal sexual relationships and behavior," be extended to published writing as our man on the ground in Nanhai, XJP, exerts his Victorian values? Hard to say. For now, it would be neat to have a list of Chinese fiction --- particularly translated fiction or Chinese fiction you'd like to see translated --- touching on LGBT romance, lifestyles and issues. Please add to the list via the comments section.
Publishers of the state-sponsored, all-China 民族文学 (Nationalities Literature) monthly magazine have announced the award winners for articles published in 2015 (《民族文学》年度奖揭晓). The magazine appears in 6 languages: Kazakh, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan and Uyghur.
The chairman of China South Publishing & Media Group, Gong Shuguang, offers advice to international publishers who want to work with Chinese companies.
Born in Fujian and raised in Zhejiang, Yu Xinqiao is one of the most popular and important poets in China today. After calling for a “Chinese Renaissance Movement” in 1993, Xinqiao was subsequently jailed for eight years. His poem “If I Have to Die,” set to music, has become an enormous arena-rock hit and stirring anthem of defiance. Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan and other works, is the editor of the new collection The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature: Writings from the Mainland in the Long Twentieth Century, a panoramic literary anthology that includes writers from Nobel laureates Gao Xingjian and Mo Yan to Bei Dao, Yu Hua, Yu Xinqiao and others. Curated and hosted by Anderson Tepper.
By David Haysom, February 21, '16
As we announced last month, on March 14th London's Free Word Centre will be hosting "That Thing She Said", a speed bookclubbing event at which translators Roddy Flagg, Nicky Harman, Emily Jones and Helen Wang will be discussing short stories by authors Feng Tang, Fu Yuli, Li Jingrui, and Liu Qingbang. (You can find out more and purchase tickets here.)
We are delighted to announce that we will be holding the same event in Beijing as part of the Bookworm Literary Festival on March 12th. The Beijing line-up comprises Eric Abrahamsen, Dave Haysom, Nick Stember, plus one more participant TBC.
Tickets are available to purchase now online or at the Bookworm.
By David Haysom, February 21, '16
As we announced last month, on March 14th London's Free Word Centre will be hosting "That Damned Thing She Said", a speed bookclubbing event at which translators Roddy Flagg, Nicky Harman, Emily Jones and Helen Wang will be discussing short stories by authors Feng Tang, Fu Yuli, Li Jingrui and Liu Qingbang. (You can find out more and purchase tickets here.)
We are delighted to announce that we will be holding the same event in Beijing as part of the Bookworm Literary Festival on March 12th. The China line-up: Eric Abrahamsen, Dave Haysom, Nick Stember, plus one more participant TBC.
UPDATE: We can now reveal that our fourth participant will be the writer Karoline Kan!
Tickets are available to purchase now online or at the Bookworm.
By David Haysom, February 21, '16
Back in 2009 the Paper Republic team put together this dream-list of untranslated Chinese novels. It seems like it's about time to revisit the original list, see what progress has been made, and put together a new 2016 edition!
We're calling on you, our readers, to make your suggestions! Tell us about the Chinese novels you'd most like to see translated. Get your suggestions to us by Sunday 28th February, and we'll publish the 2016 dream-list in the first week of March.
By Helen Wang, February 18, '16
Featuring authors Fan Xiaoqing, Qian Zhongshu, Dai Lai, Wang Dajin, Yan Huajun and Huang Fan.
