By Helen Wang, April 15, '12
http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event127226.html
Shi Cheng: City Stories from China - The official launch at the London Book Fair 2012
Featuring Han Dong, Xu Zechen, Julia Lovell and Nicky Harman
Wednesday 18th April, 6.30pm - 8pm
Conference Centre, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB
ORGANISING a literary fair with China as the guest of honour is a risky business. The annual London Book Fair, which begins on April 16th and which this year will focus on China, has—like its counterpart in Frankfurt in 2009—fallen foul of criticism that it caved into pressure from the Chinese government to shun dissident authors.
Is the London Book Fair supporting Chinese censorship?
Should a state that bans and censors books and imprisons writers be guest of honour at the 2012 London Book Fair? Richard Lea talks to organisers, writers and activists on both sides of the story
Article by Richard Lea, in the Guardian, 13 April 2012
China and the importance of cultural engagement - Thirty years ago, it was plausible to argue that all critical writers were exiled, silenced or in jail, but that is no longer the case
Article by Isabel Hilton, in the Guardian, 13 April 2012
By Helen Wang, April 14, '12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/14/dragonworld-zhang-xinxin-story-china
The 5th (and last) of the 5 short stories published by The Guardian this week.
Dragonworld by Zhang Xinxin, translated by Helen Wang
Zhang Xinxin – accompanied by her teenage alter-ego Zhaishao – investigates the source of an invasion in Dragonworld, translated by Helen Wang
With podcast of the author reading this story in Chinese
By Susanna Rustin, guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 April 2012
Yiyun Li: 'When I grew up, privacy as a concept was not present in China. I was a sensitive child and I reacted strongly to the lack of psychological space'
09:00 16 Apr 2012, BBC Radio 4, Start the Week
Andrew Marr talks about China with Jonathan Fenby, Martin Jacques, Ou Ning, Julia Lovell.
By Helen Wang, April 13, '12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/13/curse-a-yi-story-china
The 4th of the 5 stories published by The Guardian this week.
The Curse by A Yi, translated by Julia Lovell. The loss of a chicken brings simmering village tensions to the boil in this story from A Yi, translated by Julia Lovell
By Helen Wang, April 13, '12
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012 - current news items
The Guardian, 12 April 2012: Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist announced - Chinese novel about Aids scandal up against Umberto Eco for £10,000 prize
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/12/independent-foreign-fiction-prize-2012-shortlist?newsfeed=true
The Independent, 13 April 2012: 'Independent' Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist: A whole world in their words
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/independent-foreign-fiction-prize-shortlist-a-whole-world-in-their-words-7640234.html
Cultural evolution: adventures in Chinese literature
A novice when it comes to Chinese writing, Lindesay Irvine embarks on a journey into a strange new world
Lindesay Irvine, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 April 2012
Boyd Tonkin: Fill the book fair's empty chairs (The Independent, 13 April 2012)
Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan 西川, translated by Lucas Klein, is now available from New Directions.
Shi Cheng: City Stories from China - the official Manchester launch, Thursday 19 April (7pm), The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Chorlton Mill, 3 Cambridge Street, M1 5BY -- Featuring Han Dong and Nicky Harman
The first Chinese books in London: the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Wednesday 25 April 2012 (1pm-2pm), Kanaris Theatre, The Manchester Museum -- With Dr Frances Wood, Curator of Chinese Collections at the British Library
By Helen Wang, April 12, '12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/12/galloping-horses-xu-zechen-short-story
The 3rd of the 5 stories published by The Guardian this week.
Galloping Horses by Xu Zechen, translated by Helen Wang.
Soybean dreams of riding one of the horses which gallop along the road in front of the melon shack in this story by Xu Zechen...
Italian Umberto Eco is among the writers nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (IFFP).
Dream of Ding Village by China's Yan Lianke is about a community in China devastated by an Aids epidemic through contaminated blood and was banned by the Chinese authorities.
"Eighty-four books were translated from Chinese [into French] in 2011, and Arabic language books saw a 30% hike last year. Korean, however, is the language that has seen the biggest drop in translation, down 16% in the past five years."
By Helen Wang, April 11, '12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/apr/11/china-epublishing-revolution-freedom?intcmp=239
China's e-publishing revolution puts writers on a fast track to freedom article by Nicky Harman.
A new phenomenon in China – fiction published exclusively online – is giving young writers the opportunity to get their work read quickly and free from censorship
Accused of Using Ghostwriters, Han Han Offers 20m Yuan for Evidence, by Edward Nawotka, Publishing Perspectives, 9 April 2012
From Danwei: ' It’s been an exciting two weeks on China’s microblog scene. Megablogger, rally racer, and novelist Han Han has been defending himself against science writer Fang Zhouzi’s charges that he didn’t write some of his most famous work...'
By Roger Tagholm, Publishing Perspectives, 10 April 2012
“I write as freely as I want, but I give my publishers the freedom to cut anything they want. I’ve made my deal with the world.”
By Helen Wang, April 11, '12
CMR Special Issue: Key Concepts in Understanding the Chinese (posted by "gchen" gchen@etal.uri.edu on H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU)
Special Issue: Key Concepts in Understanding the Chinese
China Media Research, Volume 7, Number 4, 2011
http://www.chinamediaresearch.net/
By Helen Wang, April 11, '12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/11/old-man-xinjiang-xue-mo-story
This is the 2nd of the 5 short stories in The Guardian this week.
Editor's intro: Old Man Xinjiang by Xue Mo, translated by Nicky Harman. It's time for Old Man Xinjiang to head home, but not before he's been to see 'her'. Xue Mo reflects on the ebb and flow of life in the Chinese countryside in this story translated by Nicky Harman
Vertical Motion by Can Xue, tr. by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping, reviewed by Natasha Soobramanien, Quarterly Conversation, 5 December 2011.
This link was prompted by a reader's comment (pieshop, 11 April) on http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/apr/10/short-fiction-china-stories
By Helen Wang, April 11, '12
Chinese Literature - A Very Short Introduction, by Sabina Knight, Oxford University Press, 3 Feb 2012 - 137 pages
Publisher's intro: Perhaps nowhere else has literature been as conscious a collective endeavor as in China, and China's survival over three thousand years may owe more to its literary traditions than to its political history. This Very Short Introduction tells the story of Chinese literature from antiquity to the present, focusing on the key role literary culture played in supporting social and political concerns...
By Nicky Harman, April 10, '12
It begins here and - yes - the blurb says it: The London Book Fair welcomes the world's biggest publisher by volume this month, with China selected as the 2012 Market Focus. The Guardian's China stories series presents new English translations of short stories from the most exciting writers working in China today.
I was slightly amazed that the whole project was quite so long and involved. (It was indeed before Christmas when we started it.) There are always niggles, like we only managed one female writer - though she is a cracker - but all in all, it was a swift learning curve and a warm glow of satisfaction is stealing over me.
