Eric lived in Beijing from late 2001, when he studied Chinese at the Central University for Nationalities, until the end of 2016. He began struggling through Wang Xiaobo at an early date, and kept at it through the intervening years. He is the recipient of a PEN translation grant for Wang Xiaobo's My Spiritual Homeland and a NEA grant for Xu Zechen's Running Through Zhongguancun, later published as Running Through Beijing, which was shortlisted for the National Translation Award.
His short-story translations have appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, and n+1. He also writes occasional cultural criticism, which has appeared in the New York Times and Foreign Policy, among other venues.
Eric also runs a US-based company called Coal Hill Books which provides rights agency and publishing consulting for Chinese and international publishers seeking to do business with each other. You can reach him there at eric@coalhillbooks.com.
| Mister Lover | by Wang Xiaobo | July 16, 2015 |
| Silver Tiger | by Lu Yang | The New Yorker |
| The Real Censors of China | The New York Times | |
| A Brief History of Time | by Xu Zechen | N+1 |
| Irony is Good! | Foreign Policy Magazine | |
| Broken | Words Without Borders |
The Paper Republic database exists for reference purposes only. We are not the publisher of these works, are not responsible for their contents, and cannot provide digital or paper copies.
By Eric Abrahamsen, April 15, '13
Penguin China has just announced that they've bought world-wide rights, all languages excluding Chinese, for Wang Anyi's newest novel, Scent of Heaven, in conjunction with Penguin Australia.
Scent of Heaven won the 4th Dream of the Red Chamber Award, and will be a very welcome addition to the Chinese literary landscape in English!
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 9, '13
I recently finished Jagannath, a collection of short stories from Swedish author Karin Tidbeck which, I only realized at the end of the book, belongs to the rare and strange category of books that have been translated by their own author.
"Damn this is a good translation," I thought more than once as I read the stories. There's no guarantee that an author will have the chops in a second language to do themselves justice, but Tidbeck does. From her afterword:
By Eric Abrahamsen, January 8, '13
Many people have been asking where they can get hold of some of the novels published by Penguin China over the past year. Sheng Keyi's Northern Girls and Wang Xiaofang's The Civil Servant's Notebook in particular. These and other books are now available in e-book format on the US and UK Amazon sites, so go shopping!
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 21, '12
Unless I'm very mistaken, which has been known to happen, the New Yorker's publication of "Bull", excerpted from Mo Yan's forthcoming novel POW! and translated by Howard Golblatt, marks their first foray into translated fiction from a mainland Chinese author. Publishing Mo Yan now may not quite be the bold move it would have been a few months ago, but still it's a landmark moment. Congratulations to Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt, and the New Yorker!
Read a short interview with Howard on the NY-er blog.
By Eric Abrahamsen, November 7, '12
...you get Liu Cixin's science fiction masterpiece, The Three Body Trilogy. This afternoon was the translators' signing ceremony/press conference for the trilogy, where Ken Liu (present in spirit only), Joel Martinsen and I signed up to translate volumes one, two and three, respectively. Expect volume one to be announced at next year's BEA.
So who's publishing it? That's complicated.
By Eric Abrahamsen, October 25, '12
For anthology /Flash Fiction International/ forthcoming from distinguished publisher W.W. Norton, NY. The editors are looking for:
Recent very short stories from any country, in English translation, word limit 750 (1-3 pages). We usually reprint translations that have already been published (send us a copy) but will also consider original, unpublished manuscripts.
Deadline: March 15, 2013.
Contact: Robert Shapard, 3405 Mt. Bonnell Drive, Austin, TX, USA, 78731,rshapard@hawaii.edu.
(The other co-editors for the anthology are Christopher Merrill, director of the Iowa International Writing Program, and James Thomas.)
By Eric Abrahamsen, October 8, '12
So they say the next Nobel prize for literature will be announced this week (Thursday?), and you would not believe the number of people writing around for Mo Yan's contact information.
Dear Western media: leave the poor man alone! He's busy writing the next Great Chinese Novel.
By Eric Abrahamsen, September 20, '12
A few weeks ago we had a lively argument/discussion on a mailing list about the proper translation of the term 文艺青年 (wényì qīngnián, literally "arts and culture youth", or "arts and letters youth") – a common term for a certain cohort of under-30 Chinese identifiable by their ability to recite Haizi poetry from memory, their starry-eyed idealism, and their ownership of a digital SLR. They've now sort of become the cultural and lexicological heirs of the "educated youth" (知情) of yore.
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 13, '12
The Man Asian Literary Prize, is now accepting submissions for its 2012 prize round, deadline August 31, 2012. the MALP is awarded to a novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and already published: submission should be done by the publisher, up to three titles per imprint. The author of the winning novel receives a prize of 30,000 USD and the translator, if any, gets 5,000 USD.
The longlist will be announced December 4th, the shortlist January 9th, and the winner March 14th, 2013. See the MALP press release for more information.
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 10, '12
Litro magazine, a UK-based monthly "pocket" literary magazine, is preparing a China-focussed issue, and wants your translated short stories! See their home page via the link above for submission guidelines.
Edit: The deadline, I'm told, has been extended somewhat, so be swift!
By Eric Abrahamsen, August 7, '12
The 2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards have just been announced, with Chinese translations winning both the long form and short form prizes. Congratulations to John Balcom, who won for Huang Fan's Zero, and Ken Liu, who translated "The Fish of Lijiang", by Chen Qiufan.
More sci-fi!
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 29, '12
Take a look at David Haysom's new blog featuring translations of… things he likes, I presume! First translation is of Shi Tiesheng's Football.
By Eric Abrahamsen, July 24, '12
The NEA's 2013 Translation Grants have been announced; the only Chinese-language grant has gone to Sylvia Lichun Lin to translate The Lost Garden (迷园) by Taiwanese writer Li Ang (李昂).
Congratulations!
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 29, '12
A bit of good publishing news: the Italian publishing house Sellerio recently announced the purchase of three excellent Chinese novels to publish in Italy:
Excellent choices, and Paper Republic is pleased to have played a role, in a sort of back-room, smoke-wreathed, under-the-table kind of way.
By Eric Abrahamsen, March 4, '12
Chutzpah Magazine continues to publish ferociously, each issue with an English insert (titled Peregrine) featuring English translations of selected bits of the Chinese content. Issue six of Chutzpah just came out, and we're making all six Peregrines available for download:
