By Lucas Klein, June 5, '11
My co-translation with Clayton Eshleman of Endure: Poems by Bei Dao is now out by Black Widow Press in a special edition by arrangement with New Directions, limited to 1200 copies (so hurry before they're gone!)--contact Black Widow for yours!
Of particular interest to readers of Paper Republic may be the appendix,
"A lot of translation -- far more than most publishers and even critics are willing to acknowledge -- is real crap," notes the Literary Saloon...
Author and publisher Carmen Callil has withdrawn from the judging panel of the Man Booker International prize over its decision to honour Philip Roth with the £60,000 award. Dismissing the Pulitzer prize-winning author, Callil said that "he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe".
By Eric Abrahamsen, May 14, '11
Back in March we mentioned on the newsletter that Ou Ning had started a new literary magazine called Chutzpah (天南 in Chinese). It's got a English-language supplement (Ou Ning refers to it as a "parasite") called Peregrine featuring English translations of some of the content. The first issue of Peregrine is available for download as a PDF here. Translators include Lucy Johnston, Julia Lovell, Anna Holmwood, Dinah Gardner and Shumei Roan, translating Li Rui, A Yi, Gu Qian, and Liu Zheng, take a look!
By Lucas Klein, May 11, '11
Here is one of my least favorite poems in the standard anthology, The Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty 唐詩三百首, by Meng Haoran 孟浩然 (c. 689 – 740):
春曉
春眠不覺曉
處處聞啼鳥
夜來風雨聲
花落知多少
It’s one of my least favorite poems* for a number of reasons:
By Nicky Harman, May 9, '11
The Guardian Online Arts section runs a World literature tour on the site, and it's heading to China ... go online and add your ideas...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/may/09/world-literature-tour-china/
By Canaan Morse, May 4, '11
For us at PR not to give a nod to today would be negligence.
Reports have been that the CCP has gone to lengths this year to keep people from publicly commemorating this day through discussion or presentation. At first thought, it seems unsurprising, but there is something special about the sensitivity of May 4th. It represents a movement the government would like either to appropriate or ignore, because it cannot afford to forget it.
"The village was full of the walking dead," remembers Yan Lianke, now 53, slumping away from his desk and shaking his head. It is a crisp Sunday evening as we talk in Yan's office, where he works as a professor, amid the vacant halls of Beijing's Renmin University. The room is cold and bare: a lone bookshelf stands empty against the fading whitewashed walls and Yan courteously hands out paper cups filled with hot green tea. The kettle sits on the floor and is the only accessory in the room.
"Up to 30 million people lost their lives during the Three Years of Natural Disasters [the 1958-1961 famine that followed Mao's calamitous Great Leap Forward]. The intellectuals in China chose to keep silent," says Yan emphatically. "This time, I had to find a way to make my voice heard."
By Canaan Morse, April 18, '11
We are, at long last, updating the database. No, stop sniggering, I'm being serious. We've got new bio information for a number of writers, new books up and a seriously broader range of samples.
Many academic studies, and some overseas works, notably Leslie T. Chang’s “Factory Girls,” have focused on the special challenges facing female migrant workers as they grapple with new freedoms in the cities. Yet Ms. Sheng’s technique of writing through, and about, women’s bodies, is unusually intimate and direct. Her choice of a striking physical attribute for Ms. Qian — unusually large breasts — highlights what she says is a serious issue: How can a poor woman who attracts considerable male sexual attention hold on to her morals in a highly amoral society?
Controversial blogger Han Han whose magazine Party folded after just one issue intends to write a column to be published in the New York Times, a prominent publisher said Monday.
Shen Haobo, president of China's largest private pub-lisher, Beijing Motie Books, told the Global Times Monday that Han informed him that arrangements between him and the US-based newspaper have been basically confirmed.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 20, '11
Part two being: you can now sign up for it without receiving an error! Apologies to anyone who was baffled by that particular oversight, and we hope you'll try again.
Three Sisters (published in hardback by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, paperback by Telegram Books) becomes the third Chinese novel to win the Man Asia prize. The prize, which considers books from all Asian countries, has only been awarded four times.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 17, '11
Inventory is calling for submissions for its second issue, deadline June 2. From their submissions guidelines (PDF):
Inventory publishes thoughtful translations and focuses critical attention on translation theory and practice. Based in Princeton University’s Department of Comparative Literature, Inventory finds and catalogues original translations of poetry and prose from any language into English, provides critical texts on the subject of translation, and offers suggestions by leaders in various fields of translation work left to be done.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 17, '11
Two websites to draw your attention to:
Artspace China is a blog run by Christen Cornell, a PhD student at the University of Sydney. It's got lots of great stuff about all the Chinese arts, with a fair helping of Chinese literature in particular.
We can't really read china traducida y por traducir, given that it's in Spanish, but the website, run by Spanish-language translators, aims to do something like what we do here, except in… Spanish. A sister site!
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 14, '11
Some of you have noticed the industry newsletter signup form at the top right of the Paper Republic home page, and have obediently signed up without really knowing what you were in for—we salute you!
For the rest of you: Paper Republic has started publishing a free monthly email newsletter carrying all sorts of information about the Chinese publishing industry. It is edited by Bruce Humes, with the assistance of Alice Wang. This is mostly aimed at those expecting to do some sort of business related to Chinese publishing, but much of it will also be of general interest. You can subscribe at this page.
Two issues have already gone out, and now we're making some minor adjustments to the program: namely, you can now browse the contents of earlier issues (though the most recent issue will always only be available through email), and we've changed the format of the newsletter itself so it's less Wall Of Text.
As always we welcome feedback, in the comments if you like, or in this case you can email the Bureau of Newsletter Production directly at news@paper-republic.org.
Enjoy!
