This piece is by Nicky Harman of Paper Republic: Many libraries stock both books and films – a good film can encourage people to read the book, and vice versa, and it can be very interesting to compare a book with its film, to identify the changes and to understand the reasons behind them. For … Continue reading Reincarnations: Chinese novels translated into English and into film – by Nicky Harman
A mesmerised youth in the grip of the evolving capital: Feng Tang’s novel Beijing, Beijing – by Martina Codeluppi
Think about Beijing - what’s the first thought that comes to mind? Whether it’s politics, history, business, people, culture, smog, Olympics, Tian’anmen Square, university, food – our associations and experiences of a place are often associated with particular people at a particular time. The Chinese equivalent of Zeitgeist is shidai jingshen (literally, spirit of the age). And, … Continue reading A mesmerised youth in the grip of the evolving capital: Feng Tang’s novel Beijing, Beijing – by Martina Codeluppi
The Untouched Crime by Zijin Chen – by Michelle Deeter
Chen Zijin’s novel The Untouched Crime, translated by Michelle Deeter, was published last year by AmazonCrossing. You can find readers’ comments on the amazon website, and if you scroll down the amazon.co.uk page, you can see that AmazonCrossing made this book available to reviewers on Netgalley. But who better to tell us about the book than … Continue reading The Untouched Crime by Zijin Chen – by Michelle Deeter
Chinese Literature and the Law – by Emily Jones
The first translations of Sherlock Holmes into Chinese were published with spoiler titles like The Case of Sapphire in the Belly of the Goose, and The Case of the Jealous Woman Murdering Her Husband. Why give the game away so soon? To a large extent, it’s linked to Chinese gong’an [court case] fiction and the famous … Continue reading Chinese Literature and the Law – by Emily Jones
In China, writing reality as fiction – by Li Jingrui
A few years ago, Li Jingrui switched careers – she quit her job as a journalist (she reported on legal cases, and had a column in the Chinese edition of The Wall Street Journal) and turned to writing fiction. We selected her short story "Missing" for the Read Paper Republic series, and also featured it in … Continue reading In China, writing reality as fiction – by Li Jingrui
Ken Liu on science fiction – interviewed by Eric Abrahamsen
Today's post is an email interview with Ken Liu, author and translator of science fiction. Apart from his own fiction Ken is best known around here as the translator of volumes I and III of the Three Body Problem, together with Joel Martinsen, and Clarkesworld magazine's in-depth interest in Chinese science fiction. Eric Abrahamsen talked to him about what … Continue reading Ken Liu on science fiction – interviewed by Eric Abrahamsen
What If… – by Jeff Wasserstrom
Jeff Wasserstrom, professor of history at UC Irvine, is the editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern China, which came out last year, author of five books, one of them titled China in the 21st Century; What Everyone Needs to Know! He is very interested in literature as well as history, and he has … Continue reading What If… – by Jeff Wasserstrom
Writing (and translating) the surreal, part two: the stories of Sun Yisheng – by Nicky Harman
Today's piece is by Nicky Harman of Paper Republic: Surrealist fiction, as exemplified by Franz Kafka and his Kafkaesque absurdities, feels like a very western phenomenon. But it is also a kind of story-telling that some excellent Chinese writers have taken to and given a style and a twist all of their own. Yesterday, I looked … Continue reading Writing (and translating) the surreal, part two: the stories of Sun Yisheng – by Nicky Harman
Writing (and Translating) The Surreal, part one: Dorothy Tse – by Nicky Harman
Today's piece is by Nicky Harman of Paper Republic: Surrealist fiction, as exemplified by Franz Kafka and his Kafkaesque absurdities, feels like a very western phenomenon. But it is also a kind of story-telling that some excellent Chinese writers have taken to and given a style and a twist all of their own. Blair Hurley … Continue reading Writing (and Translating) The Surreal, part one: Dorothy Tse – by Nicky Harman
Truth becomes fiction when fiction is true – by Ann Waltner
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin is the quintessential Chinese novel. The translation by David Hawkes and John Minford (The Story of the Stone, Penguin Classics) is such a pleasure to read that the Complete Review suggested it as a contender for Book of the Millenium! This much-loved eighteenth-century classic has been adapted for the … Continue reading Truth becomes fiction when fiction is true – by Ann Waltner
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 