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The Scramble for China

By Helen Wang, March 17, '12

The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, 1832-1914 by Robert Bickers
as reviewed this week by P.D. Smith in The Guardian
as discussed (in an interview with the author) by Jeffrey Wasserstrom in The China Beat
and as reviewed by Chris Patten in The Financial Times

Robert Bickers' books are always really well researched and a pleasure to read ... as are the websites he develops - Visualising China is a stunning collection of photographs of China, 1850-1950.

By the way, I know that this is not fiction, but he's such a good writer and he knows his stuff. And the historical photos are a brilliant resource for translators - for example, if you ever need to know what Bubbling Well Road looked like in 1919 you can find it on the website and on the blog.

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Hot New Releases in Chinese Literature (Spring 2012)

By Helen Wang, March 15, '12

Here they are, as recommended by amazon.com…

  1. Guide to Capturing a Plum Blossom by Sung Po-jen, Red Pine, Lo-Ch’ing
  2. The Changing Room: Selected Poetry of Zhai Yongming by Yongming Zhai, Andrea Lingenfelter (Jintian series)
  3. Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip
  4. June Fourth Elegies: Poems by Liu Xiaobo, Jeffrey Yang
  5. The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry by Robert Payne
  6. Bright Moon, White Clouds: Selected Poems of Li Po by Li Po, J.P. Seaton (Shambhala Library)
  7. The Monkey King’s Amazing Adventures: A Journey to the West in Search of Enlightenment by Timothy Richard, Wu Cheng’en, Daniel Kane
  8. A Phone Call from Dalian: Selected Poems of Han Dong by Dong Han, Nicky Harman (Jintian Series)

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Fact or Fiction?

By Helen Wang, March 15, '12

Paul Mason is not the only senior person at the BBC who is writing fiction. Jill McGivering, senior foreign news correspondent, has been writing novels too: The Last Kestrel and Far From My Father's House.

In her review of Mason's Rare Earth Julia Lovell writes 'Reading the passages rich in masochistic sex, you easily imagine Mason joyfully kicking free of BBC fact-checkers...'

This reminded me of something I'd seen somewhere else...

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Rare Earth – novel set in China by Paul Mason (BBC)

By Helen Wang, March 15, '12

Paul Mason is BBC Newsnight Economics editor. His first novel Rare Earth is set in northwest China:

"All of this is imagined, of course. 'I wrote Rare Earth,' Mason says, 'because I got tired of trying to tell the China story as fact – with so much of the political reality hidden from view, it would be easier to tell it as fiction.'"

Read Julia Lovell’s review of Rare Earth in The Guardian

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How to find out if something has been translated already?

By Helen Wang, March 15, '12

Ages ago, when I asked this question, Bruce recommended http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/bib.htm

MCLC stands for Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

This resource center contains, among other things, bibliographies of mostly English-language materials on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, art, music, and culture and is maintained by Kirk A. Denton at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University, in conjunction with the journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. Send comments and suggestions for entries to denton.2@osu.edu. The Center also publishes articles (see "Publications") and book reviews (see "Book Reviews"). Clicking the MCLC logo at the top of each page will return you to this page. Join the MCLC Discussion List (see "MCLC List" below). Donate money to support MCLC and the MCLC Resource Center. MCLC is also on Facebook and Twitter.

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