By Helen Wang, September 11, '12
Paper by Liu Qian, University of Oxford
British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) Annual Conference, 3-5 September 2012.
Full list of abstracts here
By Helen Wang, September 11, '12
Paper by Chen Szuchi (Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan)
British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) Annual Conference, 3-5 September 2012.
Full list of abstracts here
Including International Translation Day and the 2012 Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize (for translating Han Dong's work).
By Helen Wang, September 10, '12
Report by Antje Richter on the workshop that took place recently at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Some letters are literary, some are historical.
For more on the conference, see details
From details posted on H-Asia
British writer and Booker Prize winner A.S. Byatt, and the Chinese writer Wang Anyi (The Song of Everlasting Sorrow), who was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize last year, held a forum in Shanghai recently to discuss the current state of women and feminism in literature. The Global Times has picked some highlights of the Q and A session.
A potent mix of state censorship, conservative publishing choices and scant translation means international readers are given a narrow view of contemporary China, industry critics say.
Quoting Harvey Thomlinson and Julia Lovell.
文学新血：《天南》年轻作者见面会【嘉宾】周恺（《天南》第九期作者1990年生）余幼幼（《天南》第八期作者1990年生）孙一圣（《天南》第七期作者1986年生）【主持】欧宁（《天南》主编）【时间】9月9日15:00 -17:00【地点】东城区东直门外香河园路一号当代MOMA小区2号楼一层库布里克书店
Zhou Kai (b. 1990), Yu Youyou (b. 1990), Sun Yisheng (b. 1986) at an event hosted by Ou Ning, at the Kubrick Bookshop in Beijing, 9 September.
Things are hotting up over the use of English abbreviations in Chinese since a well-known Chinese dictionary included a few hundred English (gasp!) terms:
百余名学者向国家新闻出版总署、国家语言文字委员会联名举报，说商务印书馆出版的《现代汉语词典》第6版，收录了NBA等239个西文字母开头的词语，涉嫌违法。他们说，这是汉字拉丁化百年以来对汉字最严重的破坏。
In the second International Summit of Chinese Literature Translation, sinologists and translators gathered in Beijing to discuss the state of the current translation scene. They’re also looking into future opportunities to promote and spread Chinese literature across the world.
Language barrier could be the most crucial obstacle to promoting contemporary Chinese literature.
For readers from non-English speaking countries, many Chinese writers’ novels are first translated to English, then translated again to their native language. The double conversion has increased the possibility of twisting the original idea. And this has dampened their understanding and reading experience.
In Yu Hua's China in Ten Words, essays make good entry points for readers to understand China. New in Paperback
Includes a link to an interview with Yu Hua at Berkeley. Also features Andrew Jones and Robert Ashmore.
By Helen Wang, September 8, '12
Another Lin Yutang moment - this one relates to tragedy and tragic figures in Chinese literature
"It is passion that is the soul of life, the light in the stars, the lilt in music and song, the joy in flowers, the plumage in birds, the charm in woman, and the life in scholarship. It is as impossible to speak of a soul without passion as to speak of music without expression. It is that which gives us inward warmth and the rich vitality which enables us to face life cheerily.
Or perhaps I am wrong in choosing the word ‘passion’ when I speak of what the Chinese writers refer to as qing 情. Should I translate it by the word ‘sentiment’, which is gentler and suggests less of the tumultuous qualities of stormy passion?
By Helen Wang, September 7, '12
Having come across the name and words of Lin Yutang (1895-1976) several times this week, I pulled my old copy of The Importance of Living from the shelf, blew off the dust, and was delighted to find Appendix B: A Chinese Critical Vocabulary. It's written for the general reader, and includes 81 specific terms and many more in and amongst:
eg. 48. 豓 yan: voluptuous, georgeously beautiful, dazzlingly beautiful, passionate. eg. the peony, Mae West.
eg. 67. 瘦 shou: thin, slender. This is a strangely beautiful word in the Chinese language. Slender rocks and bamboos are always painted together. It expresses non-sensuous beauty.
Reading it now, six centuries after Guo Jujing wrote this paean to parental devotion, The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety comes off as a collection of scary bedtime stories. There is the woman who cut out her own liver to feed her sick mother, the boy who sat awake shirtless all night to draw mosquitoes away from his slumbering parents and the man who sold himself into servitude to pay for a father’s funeral.
Quality remains high in Part Two, with standout poems in every category. All traditions are excitingly combined in the experimental section, as in Yu Jian’s poem-file mash-up ‘Zero File’, the Names and Devices of Gu Cheng’s ‘Liquid Mercury’, or the joyous, post-ironic “tongue-twister to try”, Yang Xiaobin’s ‘Super-Cutie Language’ ...
If you really want to export great masterworks of literature and art, it’s actually very simple: Don’t keep sticking your finger into every pie.
Winter Sun Poems by Shi Zhi, Introduction by Zhang Qinghua, translated by Jonathan Stalling. To be published in 2012, as vol. 1 in the Chinese Literature Today Book series, ISBN 9780806142418.
This issue's featured author is Yi Sha, but there are lots of other familiar names too, and reviews of new books.
New Chinese-language edition of Granta appears next month.
From her perspective one of the things that draws readers in general, especially young readers, to Sci- Fi is the wish to look forward. She pointed out that much of Chinese literary and television looks to the past. By reading forward-looking novels Chinese readers can think about what may come rather than linger on the past. They can imagine what China will be like in the future.
Poetry reading and discussion with Xi Chuan and Zhou Zan 周瓒 at the Library of Congress last October in promotion of Push Open the Window. Xi Chuan read his poems in Chinese and English in my [Lucas Klein's] translation; Zhou Zan read her poems in Chinese, with English translations read by Carolyn Forché. A discussion follows.
Blog posted 30 Aug 2012
Article by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore in the International Herald Tribune.
By Canaan Morse, September 3, '12
Chinese content for our next edition of Pathlight: New Chinese Writing has been set in soap, and I'm glad to announce that this issue will include far more poetry than any of the previous issues have. Faced with an abundance of work and a dearth of talented contacts, this is a call for motivated, experienced translators of Chinese poetry to establish a relationship with us. To be featured are Zhu Ling (朱零), Ou Ning (欧宁), Yao Feng (姚风) , Wang Yin (王寅), Wang Xiaolong (王小龙), Yang Zi (杨子), Huang Jinming (黄金明) , Liao Weitang (廖伟棠) and Yang Xiaobin (杨小滨). The deadline is coming up soon; we'll do our best to assign poems based on their relationship with the translator, and first drafts will be due in mid-September. Compensation is, if I may say so, exceptional for poetry. If interested, please send an email either to canaan@paper-republic.org or westrunningbrook@mac.com.
By Canaan Morse, September 3, '12
Three days ago, I hit up the People’s Literature Publishing House booth at the Beijing International Book Fair. One of PR’s best friends and industry contacts was on duty, and I stopped by to pick up a book and see how the work we’d done for them had come out. By the way, she said, Ge Fei has a new book out with us called The Invisibility Cloak. I asked her what she thought. She didn’t like it. Why not? A lot of unresolved suspense, she said, and it was too ambiguous. You didn’t know what to feel about it. But the writing was mature. Bells ringing dimly in my back brain, I took a copy. We long ago discovered that it often takes a negative review from her to spark our interest. By yesterday night, I had chewed through all one hundred eighty-eight pages, a pace I admit to not having reached since high school.
Interview with Harvey Thomlinson of Make-Do Publishing.
By Helen Wang, September 1, '12
Data compiled from the entry 中国作家富豪榜 on www.baidu.com
Chinese Writers’ Rich List 2011
1. Guo Jingming 郭敬明 (2010 - no.1 // 2009 - no.2 // 2008 - no.1)
2. Nan Pai San Shu 南派三叔 (2010 – no.14)
3. Zheng Yuanjie 郑渊洁 (2010 – no.3 // 2009 – no.1 // 2008 – no.2)
4. Yang Hongying 杨红樱 (2010 – no.1 // 2009 – no.3 // 2008 – no.3)
5. Anni Baobei 安妮宝贝 (2008 – no.22)
6. Jiang Nan 江南
7. Dang Nian Ming Yue 当年明月 (2010 – no.4 // 2009 – no.4 // 2008 – no.15)
8. Lang Xianping 郎咸平 (2010 – no.6)
9. Han Han 韩寒 (2010 – no.8 // 2009 – no.8 // 2008 – no.18)
10. Cai Kangyong 蔡康永
"This unique collection concentrates on Chang's post-1949 bilingual writings, translations and scholarly research, effectively revising and enriching Chang's profile as a writer and her role in modern Chinese literary history. While popular reception of Chang is often characterized by either undue adulation or derivation, many papers in this volume provide much needed critical insights and carefully researched analysis, often based on newly revealed sources, touching on issues from Chang's implication in the Cold-War politics to the ethics of autobiographical writing."
— Yi Zheng, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Sydney
London Book Fair, April 2012.
From left: Julia Lovell (Birkbeck College), Ellah Allfrey (Granta), Ra Page (Comma Press) and Marysia Juszczakiewicz (Peony Literary Agency)
More recently, Penguin has gone further to work with Chinese publishers to co-publish Chinese-language books - their first fruit is tennis star Li Na's autobiography Playing Alone.
According to Lusby, by 2013, Penguin will have more than 160 Chinese titles in print as part of its co-publishing program.
Her writing career has been smooth sailing from the start. Her debut novella The Sisters' Jungle, was published as the headline piece in the prestigious Harvest literary magazine in 2003.
With the success of her Memory in the City of Dragon trilogy she became the country's youngest top-earning female writer, squeezing into the Chinese Writers' Rich List in 2010 and 2011.
"What's outstanding about Di An is that she not only achieved market success but also won literary accolades," Guo Jingming says.
Florence Ayscough—poet, translator, Sinologist, Shanghailander, avid collector, pioneering photographer and early feminist champion of women's rights in China. Ayscough's modernist translations of the classical poets still command respect, her ethnographic studies of the lives of Chinese women still engender feminist critiques over three quarters of a century later and her collections of Chinese ceramics and objets now form an important part of several American museum's Asian art collections. Raised in Shanghai in an archetypal Shanghailander family in the late nineteenth century, Ayscough was to become anything but a typical foreigner in China. Encouraged by the New England poet Amy Lowell, she was to become a much sought after translator in the early years of the new century, not least for her radical interpretations of the Tang-dynasty poet Tu Fu.
"A beautifully written book that combines literary biography with a remarkably succinct account of British modernism and an evocative portrait of interbellum London, as viewed through Chinese eyes. Anne Witchard reminds us eloquently of the key role played by Chinese influences—both classical and modern—in literary modernism, and makes a great contribution to our understanding of Lao She's London years." — Julia Lovell, Birkbeck College, University of London
Just published in French translation by Sylvie Gentil, reviewed (in English) by Bertrand Mialeret.
In The Four Books, he recalls the Great Leap Forward, the disastrous economic reforms imposed by Mao Zedong from 1958 to 1960, and the famine that followed, claiming the lives of 36 million people. The themes of the book are in fact the madness and the suffering of men, the cynicism of the powerful, the cowardice of the intellectuals and a sense of absurdity that cannot be redeemed by religion or even human love.
If you want to know why I married Hao Dashou, I have to start with the frogs...
Translated by Howard Goldblatt.
By Helen Wang, August 31, '12
Thought I'd look around and see what kind of reading guides there are for reading groups and bookclubs who might be interested in Chinese fiction. There's a website called readinggroupguides which has a lot of China-related books (fiction, non-fiction, memoirs) and Harper Collins has a few China-related books in and amongst its Reading Guides. There are probably more, but this is all I could find.
There is a new confidence among China’s public intellectuals. Prominent thinkers Yan Xuetong and Zhang Weiwei write about China’s global rise in terms of a new civilisation that draws on Confucian tradition.
But other Chinese writers see a rather more precarious future for their country. “Behind all the glorious statistics in China today,” warns novelist Yu Hua, “crises tend to lurk.” Yu Hua explores this lurking crisis by taking 10 Chinese words or phrases – “revolution”, “writing”, “grassroots” – and linking them to his own experiences, which span the highs and lows of China’s past four decades.
Through fellowships to published translators, the Arts Endowment supports projects for the translation of specific works of prose, poetry, or drama from other languages into English.
Grants are for $12,500 or $25,000. Award amounts are determined by the NEA. Application deadline 3 January 2013. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the USA. See website for details.
All works must be submitted in English. Translations are eligible. The novella can be about any topic set anywhere in the world.
Northern Girls and China’s Migrant Workers – Sheng Keyi in conversation.
Sheng Keyi talks ‘in conversation’ on her novel Northern Girls which looks at the lives of Chinese women who make their way from small rural villages to China’s ever-expanding metropolises to play their part in the country’s insatiable economic growth.
This event is part of the Penguin Art & Design exhibition at The Temple Hotel, 23 Songzhusi, Shatan Beijie, Dongcheng, Beijing 100009 北京市东城区沙滩北街嵩祝寺23号.100009. Saturday, September 8 2:30pm
Hanging Devils - He Jiahong in conversation
Legal expert and thriller writer He Jiahong talks about his writing, miscarriages of justice, and writing what you know at the official launch event for the English edition of his novel Hanging Devils.
Venue: The Gallery at The Temple Hotel, 23 Songzhusi, Shatan Beijie, Dongcheng, Beijing 100009 北京市东城区沙滩北街嵩祝寺23号.100009
Beijing, Sunday, September 2, 2:30 pm
Q: What does Penguin have in store for the future?
A: We have Eric Abrahamson’s translation of The Civil Servant’s Notebook coming out in September and Hanging Devils, a crime novel, coming out soon. We’re going to do a Penguin Design Exhibition in September in Beijing.
"Han Han will never be as popular outside China as he is inside China, simply because the rest of the world has other things to think about." (Global Times, 21 Feb 2012)
Allan Barr is the translator. For info, see
http://cbi.gov.cn/wisework/content/104240.html
http://www.peonyliteraryagency.com/pc/han_han.html
In October, Simon and Schuster is publishing a collection of his blog posts, fittingly titled This Generation. Will Han Han ever achieve the sort of Western fame held by China's dissidents? Simon and Schuster seems to hope as much, but it's always hard to predict a Chinese writer's impact among English readers. Still, there are reasons to think that Han Han could make a splash. Not for his reputation, obviously, but for the exuberance, wit, and diversity of his essays. So, in a few months I may finally start getting more questions about Han Han. After all, his name's an easy one to pronounce.
By Helen Wang, August 28, '12
Three books...
On sex in China, see Behind the Red Door: Sex in China, by Richard Burger,Earnshaw Books, Sept 2012. For more info, see here
