Our News, Your News
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!
Four short excerpts from Han Song, Zhang Yueran, Feng Tang and A Yi.
Novels by Han authors set among China's ethnic minorities have begun to find buyers among Western publishers. They include Penguin's publication of "Wolf Totem" (狼图腾), Editions Philippe Picquier's purchase of Fan Wen's "Harmonious Land" (水乳大地), and most recently, the sale of English, Italian and Dutch rights for Chi Zijian's "The Last Quarter of the Moon" (额尔古纳河右岸, formerly "Right Bank of the Argun").
The Italian edition launches in April. Check out the cover here...
With an ever-expanding choice in reading material, literature in China works like a two-way mirror, providing readers with a look at alternate realities, and observers a peek at the shifting culture of a nation through the books on its collective bedside table.
There are journalists here, and perhaps some others, who may report later that I have delivered an angry speech. Well, I am not angry; I am just describing my situation, because I believe it is certainly not just my situation, but the situation faced by all of China's writers. And the fear I feel is not just the fear felt by one writer, but by all of our writers. Unfortunately, I have dedicated great effort to the task of compiling this 'sensitive words glossary,' and I have mastered my filtering skills. I knew which words and sentences had to be cut, and I accepted the cutting as if that was the way it should be. In fact, I will often take it on myself to save time and cut a few words. I call this 'castrated writing' — I am a proactive eunuch, I have already castrated myself even before the surgeon raises his scalpel.
By Nicky Harman, February 25, '11
By Yu Yan Chen
China Fiction Book Club is a gathering of kindred spirits bonded together by the love for Chinese language and literature. Over tea and snacks, members meet about once every two months to translate a piece of contemporary Chinese literature into English. Our first meeting in autumn 2010 took place at an elegant café near SOAS, but our next meeting on 16 March from 6:00 to 8:00 will be held at RADA.
More…
By Cindy M. Carter, February 24, '11
Some upcoming literary events in Beijing:
【Culture Program】 “2010, On the Poetic Power of Maras” Series 6: A Poetry Reading
Date: February 26, 2011 16:00-18:00
Guest: Waitong Liu and friends
Location: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), 798 Art District
In Chinese. Free entry.
In this, the final session of the “On the Poetic Power of Maras” series, moderator Waitong Liu and his friends will read and discuss his new poetry, accompanied by music and images: a fun musical jam and special slide show.
Bookworm International Literary Festival, 2011
Dates: March 4-18, 2011
Locations: various
By Cindy M. Carter, February 23, '11
Popular novelist Murong Xuecun says the mainland's draconian censorship has driven him to his wit's end.
The 37-year-old author, known for his dark humour, launched a scathing attack on the mainland's literary censorship in a lunchtime speech at the Foreign Correspondent's Club yesterday, blaming it for quashing writers' creativity and sabotaging the Chinese language.
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The 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist was announced a few days ago, the current five-book lineup is:
- Three Sisters, by Bi Feiyu
- Serious Men, by Manu Joseph
- The Thing About Thugs, by Tabish Khair
- The Changeling, by Kanzaburo Oe
- Hotel Iris, by Yoko Ogawa
By Canaan Morse, February 15, '11
The official announcement of Asymptote's first issue:
The inaugural issue of ASYMPTOTE is now out and features original essays by Mary Gaitskill and Alain de Botton, fiction by Thomas Bernhard and Yoram Kaniuk, poems by Aimé Césaire, Ko Un, Gleb Shulpyakov, Pura López-Colomé and Habib Tengour; drama by Toshiki Okada; visual poetry from Iceland (on video) and Japan; a Swedish Poetry Special Feature, a recreation of one day in the life of Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu, an interview with Francis Li Zhuoxiong(2010 World Cup songwriter) and more.
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By Nicky Harman, February 1, '11
Fish out of water? Lone voice crying in the wilderness? (well, alright, in the Quality Non–Fiction in the Digital Age conference). At the start, I was a little unsure about what role I, as the sole translator–speaker, was going to play at a conference largely attended by international publishers. Though I wasn’t the only one of a kind. There was a philosopher, Jos de Mul, reminding us that the invention of writing in the New Stone Age was just a way of outsourcing memory! And computers in the New New Stone Age (that’s now) are a way of outsourcing thinking…
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By Canaan Morse, January 19, '11
Paper Republic Associate Wang Danhua's write-up of Dangdai magazine's Best Novels of 2010 Award election ceremony, translated and with commentary by Canaan Morse. Read on to find out who won!
More…
Liu Binyan [刘宾雁], the distinguished Chinese journalist and writer who died of cancer on December 5, 2005, in exile in New Jersey, at the age of eighty, was an inveterate defender of the poor and the oppressed, a man with a powerful analytic mind. But the trait that most determined his course through life was his bent for speaking out combined with his utter inability to say anything that he thought to be false. This was so even in small matters. During his last visit with me he said, “You’re a Sinologist, but I have never tasted really good Chinese tea at your house.”
By Eric Abrahamsen, January 14, '11
Whilst I was looking the other direction, Cindy Carter's translation of Yan Lianke's novel Dream of Ding Village was published by Grove Press in the US and Constable and Robinson in the UK. Take a look at this book (there's a Kindle edition!), it's a good one, by one of China's best contemporary authors. And an excellent translation!
Congratulations Cindy!
