A Meal in Winter by French author Hubert Mingarelli is a subtle book that quietly but methodically stalks the reader’s sympathies. It does so through a beautiful, spare prose style that begins with the first line: “They had rung the iron gong outside, and it was still echoing, at first for real in the courtyard, and then, for a longer … Continue reading Book Review: A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli
Towards the end of last year, Rachel Hildebrandt invited Paper Republic to give the Global Literature in Libraries blog a Chinese focus in February. We posted one a day throughout the month, simultaneously on the GLLI blog (search for "Chinese") and on the Paper Republic blog (search for "GLLI") - that's 28 posts in total, see the full … Continue reading The GLLI-PR collaboration on Chinese literature, Feb 2017 (list of all 28 posts)
This is the last day in February, and our last post in the Paper Republic series on Chinese literature. Thank you for following us! We're very grateful to all our contributors - we couldn't have managed a post a day without you! So far, all our contributors have a strong Chinese connection. But Chinese literature is … Continue reading On a cold December evening I headed to the Free Word Centre in London, to do something I had never tried before – by Marinella Mezzanotte
Our penultimate post is about popular Chinese fiction of the ghostly, grave-robbing kind. We are thrilled to post this piece by writer and translator Xueting Christine Ni, who is currently working with the fantasy and science fiction author Tang Fei, and writing a book on Chinese deities. Having studied English literature in London, and Chinese … Continue reading Raiding China’s Tomb Adventures – by Xueting Christine Ni
Chun Zhang is the translator of a beautiful children’s book The Story of Ink and Water by Liang Peilong and Li Qingye. We are always on the look-out for great children’s books created by Chinese writers and illustrators, and this one is due for publication in March 2017. We asked Chun to tell us more about it... … Continue reading The Story of Ink and Water – by Chun Zhang
Theresa Munford teaches Chinese at a secondary school in the UK. She took the initiative a few years ago to set up a Chinese book group. At a symposium on Chinese children’s literature in 2016 she played a video in which she interviewed two of her teenage students about the Chinese books they had read. They spoke … Continue reading St Gregory’s School ‘Reading China’ book group – by Theresa Munford
In October 2015 the Chinese government announced major changes to their population policy, commonly known as the One Child policy. Instead of curbs that limited one-third of Chinese households to strictly one child, Chinese families across the nation could have two children starting from 1 Jan 2016. With incredible timing, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mei … Continue reading One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Social Experiment – by Mei Fong
Spring 2017 will see the publication of The Ventriloquist’s Daughter, by Lin Man-chiu, tr. Helen Wang, the fourth Young Adult novel translated from Chinese and published by Balestier Press. Originally from Taiwan, Lin Man-chiu has travelled extensively in South America, and her experiences there inspired this story. The following piece is adapted from the Author’s … Continue reading The Ventriloquist’s Daughter: Between Fantasy and Reality – by Lin Man-chiu
What's big and exciting in Chinese literature? We asked Heather Inwood, who always seems to have her finger on the pulse! She's Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge, and author of Verse Going Viral: China’s New Media Scenes (2014). One of the biggest and most exciting developments in … Continue reading Popular genre fiction in China, from the monkey king to tomb robbing – by Heather Inwood
Frances Wood is the author of several books, including most recently Betrayed Ally: China in the Great War (2016) and her new book Great Books of China: From Ancient Times to the Present (2017). Now retired, she was, for over thirty years, one of the key librarians and curators of the Chinese section of the British Library. … Continue reading Translations in the British Library – by Frances Wood
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 