Here it is, the 2023 Roll Call of Chinese literature published in English translation!

First the good news: this is an interesting and varied collection of titles, including classics, left-fielders, big names, and small(er) names. The non-fiction in particular is a wonderful spread of current events, political topics, and essays.

The slightly less wonderful news is that there's simply less of it! After several years of steadily-increasing numbers, the shelf shrank a bit this year. Of course it's impossible to know precisely why, but we will note that so much direct cultural contact between China and English-speaking countries has dried up since the pandemic: book fairs canceled, funding dried up, plane tickets expensive.

There also continues to be a marked gender imbalance: only two female poets in the poetry section; in fiction only 6 women to 16 men.

Regardless, these are great offerings. Special shout-outs to Owlish, which seems to be attracting the genuine love and enthusiasm that we all wish for our books; Jeremy Tiang, who is showing up on so many literary prize lists; and the Sinoist publishing house, which accounts for more than a quarter of the books on the fiction list.

And you're still in time for Christmas shopping!

PRIZES

Winner of the 2023 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize In the Same Light: 200 Poems for Our Century from the Migrants and Exiles of the Tang Dynasty, various writers, translated by Wong May, (Carcanet). This book was also shortlisted for ALTA National Translation Award in Poetry 2023

Shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2023: Zhang Yueran, Cocoon, translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang (World Editions)

Shortlisted for the inaugural Cercador Prize for literary translation: Xu Zechen, Beijing Sprawl, translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tian and Eric Abrhahamsen (Two Lines Press)

Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation Dorothy Tse, Owlish, translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce (Fitzcarraldo)

Longlisted for the International Book Prize 2023: Ninth Building, Zou Jingzhi, translator Jeremy Tiang (Honford Star)

Longlisted for ALTA National Translation Award in Prose 2023: The Artisans: A Vanishing Chinese Village, Shen Fuyu, translated by Jeremy Tiang (Astra House)

REVIEWS

Beijing Sprawl, review by William McCormack

“The connected stories unfold with a looping circularity that made me feel disoriented and déjà vu at the same time. The same images keep appearing: roasted yams, donkey meat, birds flying overhead. The book’s nine stories riff off one another, and their repetitive form gets at the frustrating contradiction inherent in Xu’s characters’ lives: one of constant motion and social immobility.”

The Sojourn Teashop, review by Ronan Hession

“…Jia Pingwa is meticulous as a miniaturist. Characters are lovingly flawed and human; they seem swept up in a wider ambivalence about the direction Chinese society is headed. The translation by Nicky Harman and Jun Liu is lucid and thoughtful. There is an odd conspicuous note of British English (“blimey” and “there’s plenty needs doing”) but overall the translation is textured and sensitively rendered – “the first burst of sunlight gilds the rooftops”.

Owlish, by Kit Fan in the Guardian

“Owlish wittily captures a recent crisis moment in Hong Kong, exploring a discombobulating state caught between civilisation and its discontents. Tse writes poignantly in the afterword about waking, dreaming and memory. Since 2019, having seen my beloved city on a knife-edge, I often turn to the question posed by Keats in his Ode to a Nightingale: “Was it a vision, or a waking dream?” Owlish may read like a dream but I hope we’ll hold on to it as a vision.”

And by Mandana Chaffa in The Chicago Review of Books

“Dorothy Tse’s remarkable Owlish—translated with beauty, power, and nuance by Natascha Bruce”

[just two of many glowing reviews for Owlish]

Hospital, by Ian Mond in LocusMag

“I read speculative fiction not for the cinematic set pieces and the sense of wonder (though I certainly get a thrill from those) but because, amongst all modes of writing, it’s the one that can radically change how I view the world. Hospital is such a book, which is why I had no hesitation pre-ordering the sequel Exorcism, which will be out later this year.”

And finally, an interesting article in Asymptote about the many decisions to be taken when translating literature from Chinese: "Principle of Decision: Translation from Chinese", by Xiao Yue Shan

The 2023 list

FICTION

• Chen Yao-chang, Puppet Flower, translated by Pao-fang Hsu, Ian Maxwell, and Tung-jung Chen, Columbia University Press
• Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones, NYRB
• Wang Xiaobo, Golden Age, translated by Yan Yan, Penguin Classics
• Wen Zhen, Nothing But the Now, translated by Dave Haysom, Bridge21 Publications
• Xu Zechen, Beijing Sprawl, translated by Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang, Two Lines Press
• Yan Lianke, Heart Sutra, translated by Carlos Rojas, Penguin/Grove
• Liang Wern Fook, The Joy of a Left Hand, translated by Christina Ng, Balestier
• Liu Liangcheng, Bearing Word, translated by Jeremy Tiang, Balestier
• Liang Hong, The Sacred Clan, translated by Esther Tyldesley, Sinoist Books
• Liu Zhenyun, One Day, Three Autumns, translated by Howard Goldblatt, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Sinoist Books
• Li Er, Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree, translated by Dave Haysom, Sinoist Books
• Jia Pingwa, The Sojourn Teashop, translated by Nicky Harman and Jun Liu, Sinoist Books
• Dorothy Tse , Owlish, translated by Natascha Bruce, Fitzcarraldo/Graywolf
• Various authors, The Book of Beijing, Various translators, Comma Press
• Jia Pingwa, The Shaanxi Opera, translated by Nicky Harman and Dylan Levi King, Amazon Crossing
• Wang Anyi, I Love Bill and Other Stories, translated by Todd Foley, Cornell Press
• Liu Na’ou, Urban Scenes, translated by Judith M. Amory and Yaohua Shi, Cambria Press
• Pu Songling, The Emperor of China in a House of Ill Repute, translated by Wilt L. Idema, Oxford University Press
• Fang Fang, The Walls of Wuchang, translated by Olivia Milburn, Sinoist Books
• Xu Huaizhong, That Which Can’t Be Washed Away, translated by Will Spence and Haiwang Yuan, Sinoist Books
• Chen Yan, The Backstage Clan, translated by Robin Gilbank and Hu Zongfeng, Sinoist Books
• Soon Ai Ling, Clan, translated by Yeo Wei Wei, Balestier
• Soon Ai Ling, Diasporic, translated by Yeo Wei Wei, Balestier
• Chiang-sheng Kuo, The Piano Tuner, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin, Arcade
• Wang Yu, Treaty Port, translated by Nicky Harman, Emily Jones, New Classic Press

GRAPHIC NOVEL

• Yu Pei-Yun, The Boy from Clearwater, illustrate by Zhou Jian-Xin, translated by Lin King, Levine Querido

JOKES

• Su Shi, Lu Cai, and Tu Benjun, The Misadventures of Master Mugwort, translated by Elizabeth Smithrosser, Oxford University Press

NON-FICTION

• Mei Niang, Mei Niang's Long-Lost First Writings: Young Lady's Collection, translated by Norman Smith, Routledge
• Wang Xiaobo, Pleasure of Thinking: Essays, translated by Yan Yan, Penguin/Astra House
• Chai Jing, Seeing: A Memoir of Truth and Courage from China's Most Influential Television Journalist, translated by Yan Yan and Jack Hargreaves, Astra House
• Li Zhichang, Daoist Master Changchun's Journey to the West, translated by Ruth W. Dunnell, Stephen H. West, and Shao-yun Yang, Oxford University Press
• Master Incapable, A Medieval Daoist on the Liberation of the Mind, translated by Jan De Meyer, Oxford University Press
• Tahir Hamut Izgil, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide, translated by Joshua L. Freeman, Jonathan Cape
• Murong Xuecun, Deadly Quiet City: Stories From Wuhan, COVID Ground Zero, Anonymous translator, Hardie Grant Books
• Cai Tinglan, Miscellany of the South Seas, translated by Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu, University of Washington
• Liang Qichao, Thoughts from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio: essays on China and the world, translated by Peter Zarrow, Penguin Classics

POETRY

• Ma Lan, How We Kill a Glove, translated by Charles Laughlin and Martine Bellen, Argos Books
• Han Dong, Capriccio on the Way to Buy Salt, translated by Diane Shi and George O’Connell, Phoenix Publishing
• Jiang Tao, For a Splendid Sunny Acopalypse, translated by Josh Stenberg, Zephyr Press
• Yam Gong, Moving a Stone, translated by James Shea and Dorothy Tse, Zephyr Press
• An Anthology of Poetry by Buddhist Nuns of Late Imperial China, Beata Grant, Oxford University Press
• Derek Chung, A Cha Chaan Teng That Does Not Exist, translated by May Huang, Zephyr Press
• Xi Xi, Carnival of Animals, translated by Jennifer Feeley, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
• Various poets, Aa Cled wi Clouds She Cam: 60 Lyrics Frae the Chinese, translated by Brian Holton, (Irish Pages 2022), shortlisted for Scots Book o the Year, 2023 Scots Leid Awards

SCIFI

• Han Song, Hospital, translated by Michael Berry, Amazon Crossing
• Han Song, Exorcism, translated by Michael Berry, Amazon Crossing

WUXIA

• Jin Yong, A Past Unearthed, translated by Gigi Chang, Maclehose Press

CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULT

• Moran Zhao, My Dad is a Soldier, translated by CCPPG, China, Reycraft
• Shen Yang, Golden Childhood, illustrated by Chen Huifang, translated by Nicky Harman, Balestier
• Wang Yimei, Millie and the Goat, illustrated by Gui Tuzi, anonymous translator, ed. Helen Wang, Perfect Picture Books
• Wang Yimei, Amu and the Snake, illustrated by Zhou You, anonymous translator, ed. Helen Wang, Perfect Picture Books
• Jin Bo, The Rain People, illustrated by Yin Yusun, anonymous translator, ed. Helen Wang, Perfect Picture Books
• Bing Bo, The Brave Little Fire Dragon, illustrated by Wu Bo, anonymous translator, ed. Helen Wang, Perfect Picture Books
• Huang Beijia, Flight of the Bumblebee, translated by Nicky Harman, Balestier