The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast: Recent Episodes
Angus Stewart
A podcast about English translations of Chinese literature, hosted by Angus Stewart. All eras, all genres, all ideologies.
Shanghai villas, Beijing alleys. Frozen Manchuria, Sichuan furnaces. Sanmao's Sahara, Liu Cixin's apocalypse. That's where this podcast lives!
In the one hundredth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are throwing a goodbye party! Friends, listeners, and past guests joined me for a little reminiscing and musing. I drank precisely one beer. The show is going on hiatus, exactly as I’ve been warning you for the past ten episodes or so.
The feed will stay up indefinitely, and it’s likely that I will be migrating the hosting to a free service to make that permanent online presence economical.
I expect I will return to the show, though it will probably be years from now.
再见！It has been a pleasure, pengyous.
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‘I wrote the asinine words ‘liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart.’
In the ninety ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we’re taking a lengthy holiday with Mo Yan in The Republic of Wine, so get your visa stamped and your baijiu in hand. This time there are two discussions. First, sober, with returnees Dylan Levi King and Michelle Deeter. Then, drunk with DLK and poet/translator Martin Winter. Listen all the way through, comrade, to hear two of us curse then proclaim our love for a prominent figure in the field. This is the penultimate episode; the time for tomfoolery is almost over.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Tongueless by Lau Yee-wa
- Helen Wang interviews Sabina Knight
- Mourning a Breast by Xi Xi
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(酒量 – jiǔliàng – capacity for liquor)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The Diary of a Madman- Lu Xun
- Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh // (plus her stories set in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Jiangsu)
- UK's Eat Out to Help Out & Japanese govt’s Sake Viva! drive
- Cannibalism in Joyce and Mo Yan
- Postsocialism and Cultural Politics
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I supposed every last one of this country’s 1.3 billion inhabitants all had their own obsessions with the giant germ cell.
In the ninety eighth episode of the Translated Chinese fiction podcast I am joined by two fine fellows, Shi Yifeng and contributing translator Carson Ramsdell. All a-puff with imperial gusto, we leaf through The Book of Beijing to discuss three of the stories collected within: Han Song’s Reunion ( 北京西站，春节之前 - běijīng xī zhàn, chūnjié zhīqián - tr. Ramsdell 先生), Xu Kun’s Dogshit Football (狗日的足球 - gǒurì de zúqiú), and Mr Shi’s own Is Mr Zhang Home? (张先生在家么 - zhāng xiānshēng zàijiā me). Prepare to shiver, to snicker, and to squeal – but not necessarily in that order.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- My Cat Hates Me bags gold graphic novel prize in the 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards
- TaiwanPlus News speaks to Jenna Tang about First Love Paradise
- Chengdu Worldcon happened – seems to have gone well!
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(复杂 – fùzá – complexity)
(壮美 – zhuàngměi – magnificent)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Parallel episode on Mu Ming’s Express to Beijing West Railway Station
- Shanghai’s strange ‘foreign towns’
- Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie
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‘Starting to write a suicide note would be too melodramatic. If she wrote it, it would only contain one line: This love makes me so uncomfortable.’
In the ninety seventh episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are passing the gates of Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise (房思琪的初戀樂園- fáng sī qí de chūliàn lèyuán), an all-too-real #MeToo novel by the late Lin Yi-han, centred around the titular girl and the cram school teacher who abused her all through her teens. Reflecting with me on the troubling nature of the text and the dark realities it holds a mirror to is its translator, Jenna Tang.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- A new fiendish rival? The China Books Review launches
- Cambria Press publishes translation Liu Na’ou’s Urban Scenes
- Avant garde champion Can Xue doesn’t get the Nobel Lit Prize… this time
- READ: Heart by Shuang Xuetao (tr. Jeremy Tiang)
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(樂園 – lèyuán – paradise)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The pedophile art teacher from Angus’ secondary school
- Black Box by Siori Oto
- The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
- Lolitaby Vladimir Nabokov
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‘the man spun instinctively to face them, both hands covering his chest, looking almost sorrowful as blood glazed his fingers’
In the ninety sixth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are entering into dialogue with bioscientist-turned-historical-fictioneer Chen Yao-chang and translator Chen Tung-jung to learn how they cultivated Puppet Flower: A Novel of 1867 Formosa(傀儡花 - kuǐlěi huā), to see if we can arrive at a peaceful settlement between the native people of southern Taiwan, their absentee Qing administrators, and the diverse Western powers creeping ever closer. Oh, and the other people on the island. You know – the Hakka, the Hokkien, the Han… have you lost count yet?
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Sinoist Books is hitting the road for a UK tour
- The Book of Beijing is coming to Manchester
- The Little Red Podcast does a Chinese sci-fi episode
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// WORDs OF THE DAY //
(真 – zhēn – truth)
(Formosa – 福尔摩沙 – Portuguese for ‘beautiful’)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The Rover Incident and the Hengchun Peninsula
- Chen Yao-chang’s place in stem cell history
- The efforts of Le Gendre and other westerners to map southern Taiwan
- The TV adaptation: Seqalu: Formosa 1867
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Trembling hands seem to check for the forgotten secret language. Withered bodies, like finding some long-forgotten receipt. Where have you been all these years? The mountains echo again, spring’s call is finally answered: I am the secret language you forgot. You are my lost credentials.
In the ninety fifth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are embarking on My Travels in Ding Yi. This is one of the later works in the life of Shi Tiesheng, an idiosyncratic writer best remembered as being a ‘disabled writer’ but better remembered as something far more multifaceted. Peer in from another mind, another world, as academic Chloe Starr and I confer with Christ and become embodied with Budda. Perhaps, somehow, we’ll puzzle out our brief roles on the stage play of existence.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- New short Chen Qiufan interview on AI
- Chi Ta-wei’s The Membranes optioned for film adaptation(!)
- Intriguing academic book: Strange Tales from Edo by William D. Fleming
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(心识不死 – Xīn shì bùsǐ – the spirit never dies)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Chloe’s paper: Shi Tiesheng and the Nature of the Human
- The Cultural Christian movement in China
- What We Owe the Future by Willam McAskill
- Life on a String (1991, Chen Kaige) - an adaptation of Shi Tiesheng’s 命若琴弦
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In the space marked ‘pregnant’, the machine had quite clearly printed the word ‘no’
In the ninety fourth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are entering election season. The heroine of Li Er novel Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree (石榴树上结樱桃 - shíliú shù shàng jié yīngtáo) is defending her seat, and that will mean enforcing various policies (including a certain one child policy) while keeping the people sweet. Canvassing with me on this one is the translator, spitting dog himself Dave Haysom.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- LISTICLE: Paul French’s TrChFic beach reads
- WATCH: a one hour interview with Yan Ge
- JOIN IN: help TrChFic (v1) end in style
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(狗 - gǒu - dog)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Wen Zhen short story collection: Nothing but the Now
- JT’s Li Er translation, Coloratura
- Pathlight magazine
- Village elections
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‘It’s just life, right? One place is as good as another’
In the ninety third episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are Running through Beijing (跑步穿过中关村 - pǎobù chuānguò zhōngguāncūn) in the loping style of 70后 hero Xu Zechen. At the fabled finishing line – observing us wryly, beer and chuan’er in had – is the translator, Eric Abrahamsen of Paper Republic fame. Insert your porn DVD, stamp your hukou, and - most importantly – find somewhere to sleep tonight.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- WATCH: Two queens discuss their translation of Lu Min’s Dinner for Six
- BORROW: University librarians take note: new tome incoming
- READ: A Sailor on the Ferry🇭🇰 by & tr Jasmine Tong
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(跑步 – pǎobù – running)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- the glorious Beijing hukou
- Beijing Sprawl by Xu Zechen, tr. our guest Eric & Jeremy Tiang
- performative DVD crushing, lol
- the analog and digital history of Zhongguancun
- The Diary of Miss Sophie(and my ep on it)
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‘I’ve never broken any rules, not even rules at school. Why would I blackmail someone?’
’In the ninety second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are getting duped by Bad Kids (坏孩子 - huài háizi). Fleeing the proverbial orphanage with me is the book’s translator, Michelle Deeter, here to mark a breadcrumb trail through the dark children’s palace that author Zijin Chen has constructed for the benefit and perturbation of all.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- READ: 'The Sacred Clan': Liang Hong turns to fiction to explore rural China
- READ: The Bug Princess by Yang Shuangzi
- VISIT: an exhibit on poet Su Shi at West Lake Museum in Hangzhou
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(骄傲 – jiāo'ào – pride)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Children’s palaces of China and the Soviet Union
- The Untouched Crime, also by Zijin Chen
- Amazon Crossing’s translated Chinese titles
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‘The “exquisite bridges and flowing water” one finds in poetry are not written by real farmers, but those who claim to love rural life when they most fear it.’
In the ninety first episode of the Translated Chinese Podcast, we are travelling half across China to pod you. The writer in question is rural/online star Yu Xiuhua and my guest is her translator, the thoughtful and particular Fiona Sze-Lorrain. The art in question is Yu’s collection of poems and essays Moonlight Rests on my Left Palm (月光落在左手上 - yuèguāng luò zài zuǒshǒu shàng), but spare also a thought for my guest’s recent release, Dear Chrysanthemums: a novel in stories.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- the Qiu Jin affair - a #namethetranslator incident
- Machine Decision is Not Final - new theory-fiction sci-fi allstar text
- a Xu Xiaobin reading from Paper Republic
- Sinoist Books northern expedition incoming, keep your eyes peeled
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(悟 – wù – understand, enlighten, awaken)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Dear Chrysanthemums: a novel in stories
- In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China
- Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
- Li Juan, another rural writer
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‘I felt that in action and in lore, one and all were far above me; that in spite of the majesty of my manliness, I could not, in point of fact, compare with these characters of the gentle sex’
Share your feedback by email: thetranslatedchinesefictionpodcast@outlook
As this show draws only ten episodes short of its ascent to heavenly hiatus, let us call down from those lofty vapours a sad and beautiful tale, a story of a stone, The Dream of the Red Chamber. Musing with me in the aristocratic compound is another host: Annie Qu, a genuine Bilibili literati. Much like Cao Xueqin, I considered myself lucky to be in the presence of such a refined lady, as we discussed the continuing relevance of this classic of classics to ideas concerning high culture, gender norms, and all the frivolous imaginings we spend our brief lives upon.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Zijin Chen’s Bad Kids, translated by Michelle Deeter, gets a shortlist spot
- Lu Xun short story Kong Yiji cited in PRC education/employment discussions
- Watch: Jing Tsu’s Asia society talk on Kingdom of Characters
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(美 – měi – beauty/aesthetics)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The Second Sexby Simone de Beauvoir
- Xianqing Ou Ji and The Importance of Living
- Family by Ba Jin
- the final 40 chapters controversy
- Qing/Qi/Shu Hua: the four arts
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‘The man in the bed looks at her. An enormous force seems to be pulling him into a world behind him, a world whose gates will soon be shut forever. She strokes his forehead gently.’
In the eighty ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are enfolding ourselves within Cocoon, the dreamlike and sometimes upsetting dual-bildungsroman and return to realism by post-85 author Zhang Yueran. Lost with me (yet ever so far away) somewhere in the low-hanging fog is the book’s translator, Jeremy Tiang. All time is one time, you poor thing; so join us, that we may better navigate it.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Meta news: We’re not blocked!(?)
- A new Condor Heroes film is in the works
- READ: an excerpt of Cloudland by Wu Ming-yi
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(茧 – jiǎn – cocoon)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Scar literature - Cultural Revolution trauma writing
- Chinese writers at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (a long history)
- The Crow Road & The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
- The Promise Bird by Zhang Yueran
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How would I explain to my friend that my creations belonged to a totally different woman?
In episode eighty eight of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are isolated in Hong Kong, experiencing Quarantine and all of the strange dreams that come with it. Are you me? Am I you? Do I wish I were you? Do you wish you were me, talking to Natascha Bruce, the razor-sharp translator of Dorothy Tse, about time, desire, and bottomless holes – is that your magic wish?
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Wang Xiaobo’s Golden Age finally arrives in English translation
- TrChFic ep on Taipei People now fully transcribed – and all eps AI-transcribed!
- Liu Cixin speaks at the UN’s Chinese Language Day celebrations – with an intro from Mingwei Song
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(靜雞雞的 – jìng jī jī de – softly, chickenly)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Doubles and identity in Mulholland Drive & Lost Highway
- Un Chien Andalou - Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel’s 17 minutes of strangeness
- Owlish by Dorothy Tse
- Xi Xi and Can Xue - kindred spirits to Dorothy
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‘This kind of “respect” can be a slow-acting poison. When a person gets used to being “respected”, that’s when she is in danger’
In the eighty seventh episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are undertaking hard Graft. Betraying little more than a glance askance, Li Peifu shows us how corporate, state, and personal interests fuse all too comfortably. Guanxi-grinding with me is humble translator and noted Sweeney-enjoyer, James Trapp.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- READ: Massachusetts Review publishes Chiou Charng-Ting’s Raining Zebra Finches
- WATCH: Book club discussion of Jia Pingwa’s Backflow River 倒流河
- LISTEN: My nemesis tackles poetry from Dalian sex workers
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(秀 – xiù – refined/ear of grain)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- 90s -> 10s education policy on foreign language education in England
- 80s & 90s corruption in China
- Jeffrey Kinkley’s writing on corruption fiction
- Aphantasia - the inability to form mental images
- Zhang Ping - a notable anti-corruption fiction author
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The U.S. fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf hadn’t had time to react. Now it, too, was in flames.
In the eighty sixth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are committing Quantum Genocide. Granting our 2019 chat a sequel, Chen Qiufan & I discuss the demonic wildcard of his 10 stories in AI 2041(an idiosyncratic blend of fictional and non-fictional speculation co-authored alongside tech god Kai-fu Lee). California burns, the 1% are slaughtered like dogs, and a new dark age commences. Boot up, log in, and accelerate.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Read: How does Chinese science fiction tell China's global strategy? Analysis by LSE China Foresight
- Read: Matt Turner's preface to his translation of Lu Xun's Weeds: what is the advantage of another translation?
- Listen: John Minford on four classics of Chinese literature that he believes best reveal the old civilisation and the heart & spirit of Chinese people today.
- Read: Emily Xueni Jin reviews the development of sci-fi in China and how a new generation of authors is domesticating the genre by focusing on traditions
- Event: Online book club meeting on Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree, written by Li Er and translated by Dave Haysom (& to be published on 27th February)
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(缠 – chán – to be haunted/to be entangled)
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‘The final cut – the coup de grace – entered Qian’s heart, from which black blood the colour and consistency of melted malt sugar slid down the knife blade'
In the eighty fifth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are experiencing the lacerating pains of Sandalwood Death, as dealt to us by Nobel literature prizewinner Mo Yan. It’s time to rip Shandong Province apart in a rebellion for the songbooks. Weapon in hand, the Sun Wukong to my Yue Fei is translator Stefan Rusinov. We laugh, we brood, we hallucinate, and we shake our fists at the craven villain Yuan Shikai, all the while pondering: is torture an artform?
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- A Record of My Battle with the Virus by Han Song, translated by Michael Berry
- Xi Xi: Can We Say // a special issue on the recently late writer
- Gu Long’s Blood Parrot, translated by Deathblade
- SCMP takes a look at the new prequel to The Wandering Earth
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(喵 – miāo – meow)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Gao Xingjian - another Han nobel lit prize winner
- Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
- Jiaozhou, Imperial Germany’s Shandong colony
- Stefan’s previous TrChFic appearance, discussing Can Xue
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‘Generation after generation, people have lived in this massive sick ward we call the universe ’
In the eighty fourth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are lost deep inside Hospital, the first entry in an abyssal trilogy by show favourite Han Song. Old-time wardmates Michael Berry and Mingwei Songare here too, groaning in the darkness.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Tencent’s Three Body Problem series arrives… on Youtube!
- A podcast interview w/ Yan Ge & Jeremy Tiang on Strange Beasts of China
- Bookshop.org puts out a Lunar New Year reading list 🐇🐇🐇
- New book: New Medieval Books: A History of Chinese Literature by Zhang Longxi
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// WORDS OF THE DAY //
(生存 – shēngcún – survival)
(痛苦 – tòngkǔ – pain)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Remains of Life, tr by Michael
- Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman // [FULL TEXT]
- Life extension gene therapy & the first gene edited babies
- The Reincarnated Giant - CUP’s Chinese sci-fi anthology
- Han Song’s Weibo account
- Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary - Michael’s meta-book
‘I am clearly an exemplary specimen of a cat, but lately I’ve been pondering something: what does a human do to be regarded as exemplary?’’
In the eighty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are getting garfed on by My Cat Hates Me, the webcomic-turned print book by Bai Cha. Keeping the menagerie in line on this episode is Jemma Stafford, translator of the book and also quite a number of video games. So don your catboy ears, say ‘miaomiao~’, and brace yourself for a heady dosage of internet animal culture.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Translation of Eileen Chang’s Written on Water to be republished by NYRB
- Riverhead Books appoints an editor to specialise in translated Chinese works
- Journey Planet magazine publishes Chinese sci-fi issue
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(不作不死 – bù zuò bù sǐ – no zuo no die, ie. one would not be in trouble had one not asked for it)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Anime Cafe Host reviews My Cat Hates Me
- Bristol Translates, and their workshops
- Gujian 3 and Chinese Paladin
- Zen Cats, a purrfect Buddhist text
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‘If you lived in one of the lanes of Puxi, the moment you stepped out your door, you would find yourself in the thick of urban life in all its boisterous variety. You could go around wearing a blindfold and earplugs, and you still wouldn’t be able to block out the sights and sounds of the city or shield yourself from the onslaught of knowledge.’’
In the eighty second episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are paying a visit to The Sanctimonious Cobbler, a novella by Wang Anyi which can be read in By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas. Wandering with me down the longtang to cast an eye across the little affairs and petites affaires of shopkeeper Shanghai is friend of the pod and Malta-based scholar Lehyla Heward.
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// NEWS ITEMS // Sign up to Louise Law’s Ark E Newsletter for updates on Hong Kong lit * Durham University’s Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies joins Twitter (at this late hour) * Former Lu Xun haunt Uchiyama Bookstore reopens (Sources: Ting Guo, China Plus, Shine) * Two Lines Press announces translation of Xu Zechen’s Beijing Sprawl, plus a reissue of his Running Through Beijing*
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// WORD OF THE DAY //(中篇小说 - zhōngpiān xiǎoshuō - novella/novelette)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // Kirk Denton’s Modern Chinese Literary Thought * the foreign graveyard in Jing’an & Xujiahui’s Catholic history * the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature * One Evening in the Rainy Season by Shi Zhecun * Comma Press’ The Book of Shanghai and my episode on it * The Hungry Tide* by Amitav Ghosh
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A star’s coming of age was the process of slowly getting uglier.
In the eighty first episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, writer/researcher Yen Ooi and I are gazing up at The Stars We Raised (逃跑星辰 / táopǎo xīngchén), a short story by Xiu Xinyu featured in the all-women + nonbinary anthology The Way Spring Arrives. Once more, a Chinese science fiction story is taking us down to the countryside for melancholy reflections on the pains of growing up. Yen and I dig into the pains of publishing too, from gender to generation and from style to synthesis.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * I will be hosting Sinoist Books’ November 2022 Book Club on Li Peifu’s Graft * Yan Ge’s next book Elsewhere is incoming – and it’s not a translation * New academic anthology Readings in Chinese Women’s Philosophical and Feminist Thought could make for a decent Christmas present, if you’ve got a spare £90
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (仁 - rén - human kind(ness))
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Yen’s musical pairing: Debussy - Suite bergamasque, L. 75 - I. Prélude * Angus’ musical pairing: Breaking Benjamin - Had Enough (live, acoustic) * Rén 仁 by Yen Ooi * UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo * How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers * A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers * The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel * We Could Not See the Stars by Elizabeth Wong * Early publications of translated Chinese sci-fi: Han Song’s The Wheel of Samsara & Zhao Haihong’s Exuviation * Chaohuan 超幻 articles: [The “Ultra-unreal” in Chinese Literature - China Channel] // [Modern China is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre - LitHub] // [Nine sci-fi subgenres to help you understand the future - Quartz] * Brain Mill Press’ Ab Terra series - joint-edited by Yen and featuring my short story Meta-Shanghai * The Leeds Uni Chinese Genre Fiction Symposium & Essence of Wonder Chinese Sci-fi virtual event * A Journey to the Narrative Design in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ by Yen Ooi & Christy Deno * China’s (now somewhat kibosh-ed) 996 working hour system
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‘In the same spot where Father died, the dead body of a deer lay prostrate in the rain.’
In the eightieth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, it’s Raining Zebra Finches. Blame for this troubling meteorological occurrence falls upon Taiwanese author Chiou Charng-Ting; it’s her story. Under the weather with me is her translator, May Huang. In our discussion we’ll be testing the limits of our earthly knowledge and dreaming of other philosophies. When nature stops hiding and springs the inexplicable upon us, where else is there to turn?
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Balestier Press publishes The Pidgin Warrior, David Hull’s translation of a kung fu satire written in the 1930s by Zhang Tianyi * A horror followup to Sinopticon, titled Sinophagia, is on the way * Can Xue’s Mystery Train published by Sublunary Editions on Oct 18th
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (梅雨季 - méiyǔ jì - plum rain season)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Angus’ musical pairing: The Alien from the Annihilation OST * May’s musical pairings: Ivy by Taylor Swift & Mother’s Daughter by Miley Cyrus * Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han * Jeff Vandermeer’s Area X/Southern Reach Trilogy * Owlish by Dorothy Tse (tr. Natascha Bruce) * Quantum entangled communication in His Dark Materials * Plato’s allegory of the cave
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‘History is nothing more than a complex construction of records and observations’
In the seventy ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction podcast, we’re riding the Express to Beijing West Railway Station, and I’ll be buying my ticket from none other than the author herself, Mu Ming. En route we’ll be passing by the scenic works of William Blake and Christopher Nolan, and pondering whether Shakespeare and Lu Xun would make good Netflix writers. Long-time TrChFic listeners will also already know all-too-well: you’re going to hear me enthuse about trains. Sorry.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * WATCH: Qiufan Chen on How Chinese Science Fiction Imagines Our Future * WATCH: Gloria S Tseng on Biblical Imagery in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature * READ: a new issue of Chinese Literature and Thought Today with a newly translated Han Song story & an essay on Little Smarty Travels to the Future
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (想象力 - xiǎngxiànglì - imagination)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Mu Ming’s musial pairing: The Grandmaster OST * Angus’ musical pairing: The End Where We Start by The Black Queen * The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard Hemming * The Dragon by Ray Bradbury * Good Hunting by Ken Liu * The Serpentine Band 宛转环 by Mu Ming herself * The Snow of Jinyang 晋阳三尺雪 by Zhang Ran * Vital: The Future of Healthcare - a sci fi anthology * Kaili Blues 路边野餐 (2015, dir Bi Gan)
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‘Then each Boxer lad who loves fighting and fun, let him follow the bonnets of bonnie Prince Tuan’
In the seventy eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding to war behind Bonnie Prince Tuan, a poem by a Chinese Scotiaphile that draws a parallel between two sets of rebels: the Jacobites of the Scottish highlands and the Boxers of northern China. There’s no point denying it – this is some pretty weird stuff. Here to lend some Boxer brawn to my Jacobean jesting is Lee Moore of the Chinese Literature Podcast – a show that has already devoted an episode to this madness.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Bad Kids by Chen Zijin, a new Michelle Deeter translation, is out! * Shaanxi Opera by Jia Pingawa, a new Nicky Harman + Dylan Levi King translation, is out! * Found in Translation - Nicky Harman considers the state of translated Chinese lit * Why do China books all look the same? - an article from The China Project (formerly SupChina) * A third translation of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass enters the world
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (廣記不如淡墨 - guǎng jì bùrú dàn mò - the best memory is not as good as the palest ink)
(雅各布派 - yǎ gè bù pài - Jacobite)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Angus’ musical pairings: Wolves of Winter by Biffy Clyro, and I’m Shipping up to Boston by Dropkick Murphyd * Lee’s musical pairing: Ride my Monster by Enter the Haggis * My episode with Sinoist Books’ Daniel Lee on A Looking-Glass World * The Jacobite risings led by Bonnie Dundee and Bonnie Prince Charles * The Boxer rebellions of 1899-1901 * Mo Yan’s Sandalwood Death * Can Xue and Kafka - here discussed by Stella Zhu * The Hook - Richard Stark AKA Donald Westlake
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“You can give me your empty words if you like; I’ve come to fill out the forms permitting us to withdraw from society.”
In the seventy seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are turning our cheek to Lenin's Kisses (受活 / shòu huó) by Yan Lianke. Yes, I’m finally dealing with him – and not alone. Piotr Machajek is here to show me how to Liven, as we look into the pros and cons of entering and retreating from a society that just cannot leave things be.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Wang Xiaobo’s Golden Age gets a retranslation & a spot in the NYT * Mildly interesting: a 2005 poll comparing expert & popular rankings of Chinese authors * Wang Shuo appears to enter Twitter and announce a new book * Paper Republic profiles Fujianese poet Wu Ang
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (狗带 - gǒu dài - go die)
(入世，出世 - rùshì, chūshì - enter society, withdraw from society)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Angus’ musical pairing - Nevergreen by Emancipator * Piotr’s musical pairing - The Perfect Revival Plan by Zhang Ling - 我是老张BIG JOHN * Jiayang Fan in the New Yorker: Yan Lianke’s Forbidden Satires of China * the concept of ‘habitus’ in Bordieu’s thought * the concept of ‘biopolitics’ in Focault’s thought * Karl Marx’s thoughts on division of labour * Reference News - a heritage PRC newspaper covering ‘the outside world’ * the commodification of Mao Zedong & Maoism * Recommended readings: Dream of Ding Village & Happy Dreams & Death Fugue & Northern Girls
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“Unmasking a universally accepted lie or overturning an irreplaceable idol will produce something akin to a mental collapse.”
In the seventy sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are hitting Zero (零 / líng). Joining me on deck are The Hugonauts, as we navigate a dystopian world that might be a postmodern riff on 1984 by amorphous author Huang Fan, or might be something far more sinister. All seasoned rebels know: sometimes you crash the system, and sometimes the system crashes you.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * READ: Cao Kou’s The Wall Builder, translated by a pair of familiar names * Can Xue’s Mystery Train now available for preorder in the US * Yan Ge nears the end of draft 1 of a new (in a sense) Chinese language novel * SFRA publishes Xi Liu’s Stories on Sexual Violence as “Thought Experiments”: Post-1990s Chinese Science Fiction as an Example * East Asian astroturf: a flood of “books” on Taiwan, China, and Nancy Pelosi hits Amazon
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (理 - lǐ - reason)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Angus’ musical pairing: Way out of Here by Porcupine Tree * The ‘four industrial revolutions’ theory * The PRC’s blocking of Wikipedia and efforts to ‘delete’ Tiananmen 1989 from collective memory * Postwar Taiwan as a US-backed, far-right dictatorship * Hao Jingfang’s Folding Beijing and its win at The Hugo Awards
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“Are you going to let your son die for nothing?”
In the seventy fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are surviving The Curse (杨村的一则诅咒 / yáng cūn de yī zé zǔzhòu). My partner for this investigation is literary Sinologist Jeffrey Kinkley. What exactly are we dealing with here? A tale of a backfiring curse, or a backfiring society? For realist writing to penetrate our often nightmarish world and scratch The Real, does it have to get weird first? Detective K and I are on the case. Don’t expect comforting answers.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Next London Chinese Sci-fi Group meeting on July 31st: The Strange Girl by Xiu Xinyu, tr Emily Jin * Caroline Jortay announces publication date for HK Lit anthology from Editions Jentayu * Chinese woman wrote her own alternate history of Russia on Wikipedia
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (游离 - yóulí - to disassociate)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Rudolph Wagner on Chinese Scifi as Lobby Literature * The Woodpecker, the Chinese justice ministry’s literary journal * L'Étranger, by Albert Camus * Two Lives - a recent A Yi short story collection * Jeffrey’s own Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China
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There is a saying that accurately describes Young Master Zhou’s state of mind: “Willing to die beneath the flower and linger as an amorous ghost”
In the seventy fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are dallying with The Fox Spirit of Bluestone Mountain (狐狸緣全傳 / húlí yuán quánchuán). Arriving just in time to save us from the spirit’s wiles is translator Timothy Gouldthorp. Straighten your tails, grab a Taoist 不可以色色 bonk stick, and line up for battle as the creatures of the forest (rabbits included) take on the gods!
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// NEWS ITEMS // * See Angus in the (pixelated) flesh in a recording of Sinoist’s Empires of Dust book club meeting * Fragments of Bogna Konoir’s writing on Three Body Theory buried as Easter Eggs in a spooky virtual exhibition * Sheng Keyi’s The Wombs of China in I Know What's Best For You All Over the World * The 8th Bai Meigui Translation Competition is now open!
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (缘分 - yuánfèn - karmic affinity)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Journey to the West and its various adaptations * Dracula and his kind’s fiendish predilections * Also from Camphor Press: The Flock of Ba-Hui and Other Stories * The Fujian/Taiwan/LGBT rabbit cult
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‘This cartoon will never end’
In the seventy third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, Eero Suoranta and I are saying Farewell, Doraemon (再见，哆啦A梦 / zàijiàn, duōlaAmèng). This is the second time a story by A Que has appeared on the show, and I feel that I now know the writer’s soul: tender in spirit, thoughtful in action, of limpid and eerie atmosphere, and shy about everything except postmodern intertextual showmanship. Pass with us through a loop in time hidden in a lonely river, to drown in nostalgia (from the Greek nostos ‘return home’ + algos ‘pain’).
// NEWS ITEMS // * READ: a review of Zhang Yueran’s Cocoon, tr. Jeremy Tiang * WATCH: Ma Yuan: The Chinese Avant-garde, Metafiction and Post-postmodernism * ATTEND: the Festival of Chinese Translation at Aberdeen Uni * META NEWS: I’ll be hosting an event on Empires of Dust
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (动画 - dònghuà - animation )
(90后 - jiǔ líng hòu - 90s kids)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Eero’s musical pairing: Moonmin Took My Head by Ritual * Angus’ musical pairing: Roads by Portishead * Video CDs * Cara Healey’s theory of generic hybridity * Flower of the Other Shore * Ye Yonglie’s Little Smarty * Finnconn 2022 * Sadan aaveen öinen paraati - Xia Jia’s A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight, in Finnish
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‘Because of sleepwalking, over one billion Chinese people have awakened’
In the seventy second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast I’m facing down a bleak reality: My Country Does Not Dream (我的祖国不要做梦 / wǒde zǔguó bù zuò mèng). But I’m not doing it alone! The London Chinese Science Fiction Group have deployed a team of Han Song aficionados (and one critic) to console my exhausted brain as the daytime hours fall away, revealing a sombre somnambulant city behind the city: Beijing.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Article in Sixth Tone: Infinite Scroll: The Making of China's Web Fiction Epics * Words from Shen Yang in Telegraph article: What life's really like in locked-down Shanghai * Short story Meta-Shanghai by Angus himself is published in Ab Terra 2021 * Watch/Listen as Jack Hargreaves reads from Chen Chuncheng's Submarines in the Night
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (梦游 - mèngyóu - sleepwalking)
(吊儿郎当 - diào'er lángdāng - sloppiness)
(躺平 - tǎngpíng - lie flat, as resistance to the 996 work system)
(闭眼 - bì yǎn - eyes closed)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Jin’s musical pairing: Space - Just Blue (1978) (the theme tune from CCTV’s Animal World 动物世界) * Scarlet’s musical pairing: 我们走在大路上 - We Walk on the Great Road [Cultural Revolution version] * Terminator (Danny C remix) from Mark Fisher’s accelerationism mix * New wave scifi, and emergence of the New Weird in the 90s * Guangzhao’s writeup of his group’s event on this story * 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary * The forthcoming English translations of Han Song’s Hospital trilogy * China 2185: Liu Cixin’s cyberpunk novel
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All the magic lay within their own bodies
In the seventy first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are stepping into A Looking Glass World (单筒望远镜 / Dāntǒng Wàngyuǎnjìng). This is our second encounter with Tianjin’s bard Feng Jicai, and our first (sort of!) with his publisher-in-translation, Daniel Li of Sinoist Books.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Generations of Voices in Chinese Literature: a panel hosted by The World of Chinese * New Sino-SF just dropped: New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction * Shenyang in translation: Rouge Street by Shaung Xuetao tr. JT himself
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (庚子年 - gēng zi nián - gengzi year AKA the year of the metal rat)
(from the 60 year cycle of the Chinese calendar)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Skedaddle - a font with Victorian hotel vibes * Sinoist Books’ new subscription package * Paul Richardson & Chu Xiaoying’s 2015 market report on Chinese publishing * the post cultural-revolution scar literature movement * the Feng Jicai institute 天津大学冯骥才文学艺术研究院
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‘There is never anything so difficult that it cannot be resolved’
In the seventieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are taking part in The Adventures of Ma Suzhen (马素贞复仇记 / Mǎ Sùzhēn Fùchóu Jì). From the backwaters of Shandong to the criminal dens of Shanghai, stout man of Oxford Paul Bevan leads me on a quest for vengeance that is little known in the west, yet part of an entire extended universe of Sinophone multimedia culture.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * PODCAST: Sabina Knight on Daoism, Confucianism & Anti- War Poetry * INTERVIEW: My Crime, Being Born Illegal - Shen Yang in Conversation with Nicky Harman * FICTION: The Old Cicada by Can Xue - now readable online, for free * EVENT: Hard Roads an Cauld Hairst Winds: translations from Ancient China with Brian
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (女 - nv - woman)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Paul’s musical pairing: Mulian Rescues his Mother from Hell * Angus’ musial pairings: Shit Can Happen - D12 and The Round Sun and Crescent Moon in the Sky - Kronos Quartet * The much-derided Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies literary genre * Ma Yongzhen, a real life Shandong badass * Wuxia and Jin Yong * Central Shanghai’s artsy street: Fuzhou Lu * Cai Guoqiang 蔡国强 - Fujian firework artist
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You couldn’t get to grips with fate, but the enemy you could see and touch was your own body
In the sixty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding with The Women, the Camels, and the Dholes, one of the stories contained within the Selected Stories of Xue Mo (雪漠小说精选 / Xuěmò Xiǎoshuō Jīngxuǎn). Two women are joining me on this trek: audiobook producer Nicola Clayton and voice actor Sarah Lam. In this tale we get material, we get Buddhist, we get into self-help, we get really close to death, and we take up a rifle loaded with... weirdly sentient bullets. It will make sense when we explain it… maybe…
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// NEWS ITEMS // * BUY: The Paper Republic Guide to Chinese Literature * LISTEN: Craig Clunas on Sigmund Freud’s Chinese Collection * LISTEN/WATCH: Jing Tsu & Dan Russell on Kingdom of Characters * READ: Ecocriticism and Chinese Literature: Imagined Landscapes and Real Lived Spaces
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (生存 - shēng cún - to exist, to survive)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Nicola’s cinematic pairings: All is Lost (2013, dir. JC Chandor) and Tracks (2013, dir. John Curran) * Angus’ musical pairing: 万物生 Alive - 萨顶顶 Sa Dingding * Gansu - Xue Mo’s home province * The Holy Monk and the Spirit Woman - the book Xue Mo wrote about a figure from Tibetan history who inspired him. Note that this link leads to a page on Xue Mo’s own website * The Inspector Chen Mysteries - the BBC Radio 4 series featuring Sarah! * The Leeds Centre January 2022 Author of the Month (it’s our guy XM) * Xue Mo’s: Twitter, and Instagram, and Pinterest, and his entry on Paper Republic
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In-your-face. I want more in-your-face, if you please.
In the sixty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are being Raised by Wolves (狼養的 / Láng Yǎng De), just like Amang and her translator Steve Bradbury. Revel in trash. Bound down a mountain. Take a ride on a nuclear sub. Argue furiously in favour of your preferred adverb. Do all these things, and you will channel the spirit of the wolf.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * READ: Tiffany Troy talks to author Sheng Keyi about Death Fugue * LISTEN: Sinica’s Kaiser Kuo interviews author Megan Walsh about ‘what China is reading’ * MY FIENDISH RIVALS… are running an amazing Lu Xun series, with awesome guests * META-NEWS: I have restored a VPN-off option for listeners in the PRC
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (狼養 - láng yǎng de - raised by wolves)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Steve’s music choice: Lisa Rose - Hook and Eye - (w/ music video by Amang herself!) * Angus’ music choice: Potty Mouth - The Gap * New Directions - publishers of poetry * Hong Hong - a poet * Alastair Reid - a translator * Ezra Pound - a Tim Budong * Vermont - a poetry fortress * Trident - London govt’s nukes, in Scotland
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Maybe I would only begin to understand these things when I became fatherless too, having no-one to lean on, the bitter solitude of not knowing what you ought to say before the world
In the sixty seventh of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are going Faraway (遠方 / Yuǎnfāng) with Lo Yi-Chin. Lighting lamps with me as time, memory, and family dissolve into an indistinct fog is the writer, translator, and mega-linguist Jenna Tang.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Paul French is back on British radio with A Chinese Odyssey: Artists, Poets and Exiles in Interwar London - streaming online for 1 year+ * Sinoist Books’ Longevity Park bags a spot in the Dublin Literary Award Runlist * Sinoist Books announce lineup of 4 new titles * Chinese language podcast Loud Murmurs goes dark * Jennifer Feeley translates Xi Xi’s concrete poem Thicket of Green Grass for the new Tiger Year
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (遠方 - yuǎnfāng - far away (or should it be ‘faraway’?)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Wintry Night 寒夜 by Li Qiao 李喬 * Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu * 1988: I Want to Talk with the World by Han Han * Bo Ke Lai 博客來 - International Taiwanese bookstore 海外專館 * Taiwanese writers Jian Zheng 簡媜 and Qi Jun 琦君
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The rocking of the boat created the illusion that all the lights were moving
In the sixty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are adrift in Hong Kong Nights (香港之夜 / Xiāng Gǎng Zhīyè), as fleetingly recollected by Sichuan’s long-surviving left-anarchist writer, Ba Jin. Joining me in the constellations is fellow Sino-lit podcaster Luo Tianqi – here to talk about revolution, regret, and responsibility. Grab a seat on deck, comrade, brush up on your Bakunin, and let go of your transient identity as sights become sounds, and sounds become sights.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q to broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on January 26 * The Sons of Red Lake and Chinese Elemental Philosophy - Sinoist Books’ blog * The Way Spring Arrives gets a beautiful Chinese edition * A dialogue between past and future show guests Mike Fu and Jenna Tang * KakaoEntertainment buys Wuxiaworld - plus thoughts from the translators
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (家 - jiā - home/family)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Tianqi’s podcast * Various translated Ba Jin essays available on Anarchy Archives * Tianqi’s musical pairing: Hong Kong Nights 香港之夜 by Teresa Teng 鄧麗君 * Angus’ musical pairing: Hieroglyph by Cynic * Dissenting from Ba Jin by Geremie Barmé // Available on DOUBAN and GDOCS * Family by Ba Jin (trans by Sidney Shapiro) * Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho * Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez * Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage * The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction by Terry Eagleton
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The best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface, which is where, in fact, all of us live out our lives
In the sixty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are swathing ourselves in The Invisibility Cloak (隐身衣 / Yǐnshēn Yī). Languishing with me in the peace and pain of relative obscurity are Giray Fidan and Rauno Sainio, two translators of the book’s author: Ge Fei, an imperceptible fabulist and three-time subject of this very show. I still haven’t figured him out, and I’m sure he’d be glad of it.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * ACA Publishing/Sinoist Books bags an English PEN translation grant for The Sacred Clan by Liang Hong * New book: The Artisans by Shen Fuyu, translated by Jeremy Tiang * Chinese student writes Marxism dissertation on Warhammer 40K * Lemony Snicket’s new book has a cameo from Pu Songling and John Minford
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// PHRASES OF THE DAY // (太阳还好端端的在天上挂着呢! - Tàiyáng hái hǎoduānduān dì zài tiānshàng guà zhene - And the sun is still hanging right up there in the sky!)
(安居乐业 - Ānjūlèyè - To live in peace, and work happily)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * I Found My Mind in Connecticut - Cage * La Follia - Vivaldi * Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami * The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tampinar * Naked CEO Grant Horsfield and his Moganshan resort * The Altaic language family and its syntax
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‘Suppose the universe is a program. Everything that we can observe is the result of the machine-executable code. But the cosmic microwave background can be understood as the record of some earlier version of the source code.’
In the sixty forth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we bear witness to the Coming of the Light (开光 / Kāiguāng), penned by the shaman-consulting Google graduate himself; it’s Stan, it’s the man, it’s Chen Qiufan. And hark – what’s this? Waves and photons in the shape of noted publisher Francesco Verso surge from the underscreen to puncture my cybernetic solipsism, but will our agile enterprise decode the universe before its unravelling, or are all digital startups nought but the initiation of the end?
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- READ: A Ramble Through the Heart: A Semi-Coherent Attempt at Self-Justification by Chua Chim Kang, tr Tan Dan Feng, from Renditions Issue 96
- LISTEN: My Scandinavian nemesis strikes again - Owlish and Other Translated Languages with Natascha Bruce
- ROUNDTABLE: Can Chinese Science Fiction Transcend Binary Thinking?
- REVIEW: TrChFic named ‘Shiver-Worthy Runner-Up’ in: {Scary’s Voices} Sound Bites for November 26th
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(云 - yún - cloud)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Ether by Zhang Ran - Francesco’s recommendation
- Chan/Zen Buddhism
- Zhongguancun - the Silicon Valley of Beijing
- duang - a rather old meme - and here it is in a That’s Shanghai meme review
- Solarpunk - according to the BBC
- Wired’s article on Silicon Valley Buddhism
- And…Wired’s brilliant article on Chen Qiufan - some more evidence of his interest in the shamans of China’s periphery
- the PRC's internet/gaming addiction camps
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In my innocent youth, I was a paragon of virtue, but after wandering for so long in the red dust of this world I had joined the forces of evil
In the sixty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are Dancing Through Red Dust (原谅我红尘颠倒 / Yuánliàng Wǒ Hóngchén Diāndǎo), a nightmarish lurch through the PRC (il)legal system dreamed up by the Shandong webnovelist-turned-dissident Murong Xuecun. Presiding over the court with me is Murong’s esteemed translator, editor, publisher, and friend: Harvey Tomlinson. What have judges to do with the Jinpingmei? What has loss to do with licentiousness? How does Buddhism end up parceled in with backhand business? You shut up and listen. We’ll deliver the verdict.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Strange Beasts of China lands a spot on the NYT’s 100 Notable Books of 2021 * How an American fell in love with China and Chinese - Great SCMP article on/by translator/Mr Paper Republic, Eric Abrahamsen * New & queued TrChFic Patreon episodes: 2046, The Road Home, Taiwan symposium, Faraway, and a kehuan battle royale * Sinoist Books have upgraded their website
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (晚 & 碗 - wǎn & wǎn - ‘evening’ and ‘bowl’)
(色 - sè - here meaning ‘carnality’)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Leave Me Alone by Murong Xuecun himself * The Strike - Harvey’s experimental syntax novel * Red dust 红尘 - a Sino-Buddhist concept * The Plum in the Golden Vase and a horrible Jin Ping Mei anime doll * Running Around Beijing by Xu Zechen * Northern Girls by Sheng Keyi * Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky * Faraway by Lo Yi-chin
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Before us stood the long abandoned skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Sun's weak light casting their long shadows across the quiet ice of the New York Harbor. In my tipsy haze, tears began to gush down my cheeks.
In the sixty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are setting sail on The Wandering Earth (流浪地球 / Liúlàng Dìqiú), drawn up and captained by Liu Cixin himself. Calling into the show from the Peruvian Engine Bunker is Jairo Morales. We get deep into postnationalism, censorship, cultural transmission, and the sublime spectacle of the utter annihilation of our planet’s fragile surface. Goodbye solarpunk, hello solardoom.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The Tyranny of Neutrality - Virginia L Conn reviews AI 2041 * TrChFic Meta News: The Leeds Centre Taiwan Literature Symposium * HKKH interviews Dorothy Tse * Announced by Tweet: Amazon Crossing will publish a translation of Han Song’s Hospital Trilogy
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (短暂的 - Duǎnzànde - ephemeral/efimero)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Jairo’s musical pairings: Gymnopédie No 1 by Erik Satie & 消愁 - Xiao Chou (Drown One's Sorrows) by Mao Buyi 毛不易 * Angus’ musical pairing: Black Light Machine by Frost * Magical realism from Latin America * The Emerging Japanese Superstate by Herman Kahn - 70s think tank guy does a yellow peril, history buries him * Chuang article: The Wandering Earth: A Reflection of the Chinese New Right * 200 Drones Fall Out Of The Sky In China’s Zhengzhou * Ken Liu’s anthology of Chinese sci-fi: Invisible Planets * The Cultural Revolution as ‘partially denouncable’
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I loathe reason. Reason is the sort of rubbish you can indulge in when life is sweet, like love and honour. I totally reject it.
In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo. Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman. Here’s what we deal with: pain, incest, and the political uses of shock, horror, and offensiveness. Are you sure about this? You can delete this episode now. Do you choose to hit play?
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet by Bogna Konoir - applies Liu Cixin’s logic to cyberspace * Sense of Place - new issue of Pathlight Magazine * Gei Fei’s Peach Blossom Paradise bags spot in translated literature finalist list for US 2021 National Book Awards * TOR announces full contents of The Way Spring Arrives
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (痛 - tòng - pain)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Nicky’s musical pairing: Stride la Vampa from Il Trovatore * Angus’ musical pairing: God’s Away on Business by Tom Waits * Chen Xiwo’s speech on literary censorship in the PRC, given at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club in 2010 * A Banned Take on Contemporary China: Wall Street Journal review of The Book of Sins * Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik * Thomas Ligotti, anhedonic pessimist horror writer * Lit by Mary Karr, a considerably more functional individual * Various edgy Chinese novels: Playing for Thrills … 1988: I Want to Talk with the World … Dancing Through Red Dust … Shanghai Baby … A Perfect Crime
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Just as Nga-Yee thought everything was going back to normal, Siu-Man stepped from the window of their twenty-second-story flat
In the sixtieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are solving the case of Second Sister (網內人 / Wǎng Nèi Rén), penned by crime connoisseur Chan Ho-kei. Logged on with guest-level access and ready to follow the trail wherever it leads is 3-time visitor to the show Michelle Deeter. In the events that follow we hack into moral frameworks, digital archives, memory glitches, and urban navigation. Switch off your VPN (we’re in Hong Kong this time), take a quick glance over your shoulder, and enjoy!
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Gŵyl Haf & Borderless Book Club - International Translation Day event with Sinoist Books, Nicky Harman, and Jun Liu on an upcoming Jia Pingwa translation * AI 2041: Why the Future is Already Here, with Kai-Fu Lee - Chen Qiufan’s co-author gets interviewed by the Intelligence Squared podcastChen Qiufan does an animated TED video to help promote AI 2041 * a TrChFic 80 minute breakdown of ChQF’s Coming of the Light * Dark as a Boy - read an excerpt of Ho Fok Song’s Maze Carpet, translated by Natascha Bruce
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (人肉搜索引擎 - rénròu sōusuǒ yǐnqíng - human flesh search engine)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Stress in Hong Kong * Social engineering within hacking * Ad Infinitum by Oh the CIty - Michelle’s musical pairing * Mr Robot Season 1 OST by Mac Quayle - Angus’ musical pairing * Jung’s concept of the persona * Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction by Stephen Knight * The Untouched Crime by Zijin Chen * A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan * Metazoa: Animal Minds and the Birth of Human Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith * The Oxford Bar - Ian Rankin’s local
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It is a long and painful process to see oneself clearly, as is the process of returning to one’s childhood.
In the fifty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are talking with someone who is More Than One Child (隐形小孩 / Yǐnxíng Xiǎohái), a woman as friendly as she is fearless: Shen Yang. She’s here on this episode, and so is her translator, friend-of-the-pod, and returnee guest Nicky Harman. The book is forthcoming from the excellent publisher Balestier Press.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * From July 2nd: PEN Translates awards announced, including two titles from the PRC * Dylan Levi King tries out movie commentary for Obsession 疯狂的代价 (1988) * New book from Astra House: Yu Xiuhua’s Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm * Publisher’s Weekly shares a Spotlight on Six Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (葳蕤 - wēi ruí - lush, burgeoning foliage)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * '琵琶語 Pipa Yu' by 林海 Lin Hai - Shen Yang’s musical pairing * When Everything Is Green by Julie Christmas & All The World is Green by Tom Waits - Angus’ musical pairings * The One Child Policy * The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr * Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China by Rao Pingru, trans. Nicky Harman * Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower by Roseann Lake * Robert Winston’s BBC program on memory… sadly it’s not streaming anywhere
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The moment I was bitten, I died and became another thing. Now I am loitering on the other shore of the Styx, listening to the past from beyond its waves.
In the fifty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are picking Flower of the Other Shore (彼岸花 / Bǐ'àn Huā), a romantic(!) zombie short story by A Que. Here to help me find sympathy for the undead is the tale’s translator, Xueting Ni. The story will feature in her anthology of translated Chinese sci-fi: Sinopticon.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award * Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing launches new journal & calls for papers * TrChFIc Meta News: Ximalaya feed censored, stoopid Lu Xun meme blows up
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (丧尸 - sàngshī - zombie)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Intertextuality - big word for a simple concept * World War Z - the book & the film * Xueting’s From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: The Essential Guide to Chinese Deities * The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction * Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
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‘Chopin always reminds me of being lovelorn in Penang’
[ this is episode 5 of our Taiwan Season ]
In the fifty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are suffering from Home Sickness (匿逃者 / Nì Táo Zhě), a short story collection by Chih-ying Lay. Here to ease this terrible affliction is the book’s translator: reformed Buddhist and agile herper Darryl Sterk.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Healing with Poisons - a book on the interwining of classical Chinese medicine & poison
- Ketamine and the Return of the Party-State - DLK’s political history of ket vs the CCP
- A&Qs on 'Sinofuturisms' - compiled in Verge: Global Asias by Virginia L Con & 胡子哥
- TrChFic bags a spot in the Feedspot Literature Podcasts list
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(亲源关系 - qīnyuán guānxì - phylogenetic relationship)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Herping - not a word I’d heard before!
- Small publishers Honford Star, Balestier Press, and Linda Leith
- 航向愛爾蘭: 葉慈與塞爾特想像 (Sailing to Ireland: Essays on W. B. Yeats and the Celtic Renaissance)
- Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - film about an anti-Japanese indigenous uprising in 30s Taiwan
- Lessons in Essence by Dana Standridge
- The Mystery Religions of Gladovia: A Novel by Bradley Winterton
- Kant’s noumena & the Buddhist concept of ‘convenient means’
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‘According to the ancient precepts, grief supersedes all formalities’
[ this is episode 4 of our Taiwan Season ]
In the fifty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are introducing ourselves to the Taipei People (台北人 / Táiběi Rén), as written by Pai Hsien-yung. Joining me to question the merits of nostalgia and muse aimlessly on umbrellas and the like is a genuine Taibei ren; the effortlessly hip Nadia Ho.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Alain Charles Asia seeking publishing production freelancers - contact daniel.li@alaincharlesasia.com * Issue One of ‘Jintian’ - the legendary Chinese lit magazine * READ: The Killer 撞死了一只羊 by Tsering Norbu * Two Poems by Bei Dao - commemorating June 4th
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (夢 - màng - dream)
pls note I’ve used the character’s traditional form and local Taiwanese pronunciation here!
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The Taste of Apples by Huang Chun-Ming tr. Howard Goldblatt * Dubliners by James Joyce * Kun opera - Mr Pai’s favourite style * The May 4th Movement & Battle of Tsingtao * The Paramount Ballroom in Shanghai
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‘Only if you go to places nobody’s ever been can you see the colours nobody’s ever seen’
[ this is episode 3 of our Taiwan Season ]
In the fifty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are meeting The Man with the Compound Eyes (复眼人 / Fùyǎn Rén). Brace yourself for the impact of an ecological, apocalyptic, and internationalist vortex of literary weirdness. Joining me to weather this storm at the limits of anthropoid cognition is Sinophone-sci-fi-studier Cara Healey.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The Secret Talker by Geling Yan * Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader By Howard Chiang * The Rainbow of Time by Jimmy Liao
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (涡流 - wōliú - vortex, whirlpool)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan * the Indigenous people of Taiwan * David Mitchell and impending doom * The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction
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‘Some desires, once formed, are impossible to fulfil, so they become frustrations instead. That’s the problem with going forth into new worlds’
[ this is episode 2 of our Taiwan Season ]
In the fifty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are thumbing through the Notes of a Crocodile (鳄鱼手记 / Èyú Shǒujì). Joining me on the lookout for the shy and elusive reptiloid is Conor Stuart.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * How a Polish Master Brought Lu Xun's Madness to Life * 11th Chinese Nebula Awards Winners – list shared in English by Locus * NEA Big Read 2021: China’s Literary Giants: The Legacy of Yu Hua
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (三八 - Sānbā - usually derogatory adjective used to describe ‘frivolous’ women)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Crystal Boys by Pai Hsien-yung * LGBT rights in Taiwan * ‘Addiction’ webseries * ‘Lala/lazi’ slang for ‘lesbian’
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‘Two peach trees, two entirely different universes.’
[ this is episode 1 of our Taiwan Season ]
In the fifty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are peeling back The Membranes (膜 / Mó). Joining me at their respective computer terminals in the ocean floor biodome are its author Chi Ta-wei and translator Ari Larissa Heinrich.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * PANEL: Exploring Chinese Science Fiction Multi-Dimensionally * PREORDER: Vessel - a memoir by Cai Chongda * UPCOMING: The London Chinese Science Fiction Group to have Han Song on as a guest
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (赞 - zàn - ‘like’, as in Facebook, Wechat etc)
(情 - qíng - emotion, affection, sentiment)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * 80s & 90s sci-fi and cyberpunk: should it be left behind? * the hole in the ozone layer * chickens with teeth * queer parenting in Taiwan
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// Episode Sponsor // Buy Paul French’s Destination Peking here:
https://www.blacksmithbooks.com/books/destination-peking/
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‘An unruly monkey like you has to be restrained somehow, otherwise you’ll never reform’
In the fifty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are departing from the Tang Empire on a haphazard Journey to the West (西游记 / Xī Yóu Jì). Talking me through the transformations is Julia Lovell, translator of JttW’s latest, extremely readable English translation.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * A new Can Xue translation is on the way * Yang Lian and Brian Holton win first Sarah Maguire Prize * ‘Jia Pingwa: Master Storyteller of Rural China’ event, Fri 9 Apr
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (游 - yóu - journey)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Can’t Get You Out of My Head, (Dir. Adam Curtis, 2021) * The Sinister Way by Richard von Glahn * Transforming Monkey by Hongmei Sun * The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel by Andrew Plaks * Cultural Syncretism (in a silly video game) * (Breaking the) rules of fantasy fiction
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'I stand alone on the earth, unable to bring the show to an end'
In the 51st episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we're heading into the far west to come face-to-face with Li Juan, a Han Chinese writer who has found some degree of fame writing soulfully about her experiences living among the Kazakh herders of Xinjiang Province. Braving the frontier with me are two of her translators, TrChFic returnee Christopher Payne and friend-of-the-pod Jack Hargreaves. The former translated Li Juan's Distant Sunflower Fields and the latter is one of the two co-translators of her Winter Pasture.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Closing the China Channel * Vector Magazine issue on Chinese SF * Ding Ling, Boiling Milk | prchistory.org
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// WORDS OF THE DAY // (“Koychy!” - a versatile Kazakh exclamation, often meaning “no way,” “no thanks,” “get out,” “leave it out” )
( 荒野 - huāngyě- wilderness)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Opinion | The Real Censors of China - NYT * China 'to let thousands of ethnic Kazakhs leave Xinjiang' - The Guardian * Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong * Lei Diansheng’s ‘completionist’ trek around the borders
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Starting a podcast is not a dinner party
In the fiftieth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, I put my feet up and have a beer! Woohoo!
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Beijing Lights Archives | Spittoon * Sci-Fi Writer or Prophet? The Hyperreal Life of Chen Qiufan * Mither Tongue: Jidi Majia's poetry in 3 Scots dialects
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'One morning, Salinger was woken from sleep by deafening noises. Dazed, he gazed outside the window and saw a row of gleaming Baekdu bulldozers, which had been modified from Chonma-ho battle tanks, bearing down on his cabin.'
In the forty ninth episode we continue our megacrossover, this time tackling modern literature. Once more unto the jazz hall, dear friends, once more, as we tackle: lamppost sexuality, mantou typography, disposable(?) wuxia, and the philosophy of chicken nuggets. No, really. I'm not joking. Wait, come back!!!
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Taiwan Year at the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing - Egoyan Zheng Excerpt * Jeremy Tiang - The World Is Not Enough - is world literature just a ‘spice rack’ for lazy Westerners? * Lost in Translation: What’s the Problem with Chinese Literature in the West? - Zoom talk w/ Jianan Qian, Nicky Harman, and Eric Abrahamsen * Reading "The Story of the Stone" with 白先勇 Pai Hsien-Yung and 陳毓賢 Susan Chan Egan - a superstar Zoom talk!
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// PODCASTERS & THEIR CHOSEN STORIES // Rob and Lee of The Chinese Literature Podcast chose Sealed Off by Eileen Chang
William and Kevin of Rereading the Stone chose Shanghai Foxtrot by Mu Shiying
Yifan of 文化土豆 Culture Potato chose A Bond Undone, Chapter 1 by Jin Yong
and your host Angus chose Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Eileen Chang's time in Shanghai and Hong Kong * Distortion of time during lockdown * Mu Shiying, a somewhat forgotten Shanghai modernist * Modernism & 'mechanophilia' * Jin Yong & the origins of modern Wuxia * Chinese pen names * China’s Image in Han Song’s Science Fiction * the concept of the 'observer' in quantum physics
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// Episode Sponsor // Buy Jeremy Bai AKA Deathblade's The Heretic Peacekeeper here:
Amazon: http://mybook.to/9h10eTHP
Kobo, Nook, etc: https://books2read.com/u/mgzxxx
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'What sort of a fiend are you that you dare change into my appearance, take my descendants captive, occupy my immortal cave, and assume such airs?'
In the forty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are doing something a little different! In this episode half of a small army of Chinese lit podcasters join me to discuss their favourite stories from dynastic China.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The TrChFic Mailing List * Distant Sunflower Fields - OUT NOW * Ma Jian on China's Efforts to Extinguish Memory
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// PODCASTERS & THEIR CHOSEN STORIES // Mason of the Plum Forest Podcast chose 'The Thunder God', from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
John of Chinese Lore chose Chapter 2 of The Outlaws of the Marsh, tr. Sidney Shapiro
Yang of The Chinese Mythology Podcast chose 'Weaver Shi Meets a Friend at the Strand from Stories to Awaken the World (醒世恒言) by Feng Menglong, tr. Ted Wang and Chen Chen
Tianqi of Stories from a Chinese Studio chose ‘Two Monkeys’, from Journey to the West tr. Anthony C Yu
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Breakfast with Socrates * the translator Herbert Giles * the 1986 TV adaptation of Journey to the West and the 1978 Japanese adaptation * 'Sworn brothers' and other kinds of kindship in China * the dark 'Fake Wukong' theory * the author Feng Menglong
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When you've stared at the past for so long that time dissolves, you'll be able to wake from your slumber
In the forty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are falling into Beijing Coma (肉之土 / Ròu Zhī Tǔ). Avid Ma Jian reader Ronald Torrance is here to guide me from perimeter to epicentre of this colossal novel, and the weighty events it reckons with. Even without politics, stakes are high here: life/death, time/memory, flesh/history, and the intimate bonds that can exist between translators and writers.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Pen Fairy * The TrChFic Mailing List * Lost in Translation: The World of Chinese Literature in English * ‘The atmosphere has become abnormal’: Han Chinese views from Xinjiang
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (地标 - Dìbiāo - Landmark)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The People's Republic of Amnesia by Louisa Lim * Beijing from Below: Stories of Marginal Lives in the Capital's Centre by Harriet Evans * Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeline Thien * What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear by Baoshu * Prisoner of the State by Zhao Ziyang * Death Fugue by Sheng Keyi * Balloon by Pema Tseden * The loneliness of Yan Lianke * Mo Yan & censorship * How China's censors are taught about 'restricted topics' * Meng Po and her memory-erasing soup * Cui Jian, rock music, and socialist/patriotic anthems at Tiananmen
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If anyone is reading this notebook — don’t come looking for me. Don’t.
In the forty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are undergoing black initiation into The Flock of Ba Hui (巴虺的牧群 / Bāhuī de Mùqún). Returning to the show to rescue me from the abyss - or hurl me into it - is the extremely online Dylan Levi King. We have quite a beast to wrestle with this episode. Lovecraftian fiction, from the Chinese internet, curated, translated and packaged in paratexts by two particularly unorthodox individuals.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Women Writing China: Female Authors and Chinese Literature * How a Music Streaming Site Became a Safe Space for Leftist Listeners * Peking Noir with Paul French
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (邪神呼唤 - Xiéshén Hūhuàn - the call of Cthulhu)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * the Cthulhu mythos * the Ring of Wonder * the Yi People * Western Xia as 'lost civilisation' * Yi Izzy Yu & John Branscum on Ji Yun's weird fiction * Racism in Lovecraft's writing * 'Neoreaction' and the fantasy/horror genre
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In bars like this, on nights like this, the people of Yong'an would talk of death
In the forty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are hunting for the Strange Beasts of China (异兽志 - Yì Shòu Zhì). Two very special guests are joining me this time - the book's author Yan Ge and its translator Jeremy Tiang. If I sound a little off-kilter this episode, it's because I'm star struck!
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Faraway by Lo Yi-Chin - coming out this September * How Lin Qi's Poisoning Death Shocked China - A suspected murder by poisoning related to the Three Body Netflix adaptation * Round up, Round up - News #1 - Paper Republic now has its own news roundup!
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (异 - Yì - strange/different)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The Shanhaijing * Bestiary by K-Ming Chang * Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton * Attrib by Eley Williams * I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak * the mighty 小儿赶牛 - red bull & ergoutou baijiu * the seven sages of the bamboo grove * The 'san xian/third line' industrialisation plan
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Every person's heart is an island, trapped by water, sequestered from the world
In the forty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are going in search of Peach Blossom Paradise (人面桃花 - Rénmiàn Táohuā) by Ge Fei. Rowing me through the lingering mists and dark waters is craftmaster Canaan Morse, its translator.
Ge Fei has been covered once before on this show. We did his Flock of Brown Birds in Episode 30. This time we are dealing with something less surreal. On the surface, it's a typical 'important Chinese novelist writes historical saga' affair. But beneath...
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// NEWS ITEMS // * There and Back Again: Tracking Down Transliterations in Stories of the Sahara - a blog from translator Mike Fu * Paper Republic's 2020 Roll Call of Published Translations from Chinese * Understanding Chinese Fantasy Genres - a guide from translator Jeremy Bai AKA Deathblade
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (徒 - Tú - in vain)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * the 100 Days' Reform * The Invisibility Cloak also by Ge Fei * In the Heat of the Sun (1994, dir. Jiang Wen) * The Tradition of Telling and the Desire of Showing in Ge Fei’s ‘Fictional Minds’
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'Underneath the hole is another hole. Do you dare go down?'
In the forty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are grappling with the experimental literature of Can Xue, as embodied in I Live in the Slums. Helping me train for the performance of a lifetime is Chinese-to-Bulgarian translator & friend of the pod, Stefan Rusinov.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Yan Ge's White Horse shortlisted for the Warwick Women in Translation prize * Lovecraftian stories from the Chinese internet: The Flock of Ba Hui
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (审丑 - shěn chǒu - examining ugliness AND/OR the abject, if you like)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Stefan's podcast (it's in Bulgarian!) * High Culture Fever by Jing Wang * The Code of Fiction (小说密码) by Ma Yuan * Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz * Turtle Feet by Nikolay Grozni * the 10 clues to solving Mulholland Drive * Stubborn Dirty Snow - Can Xue at the Asian American Writers' Workshop * Kafka and the struggles of an absurd existence * Can Xue interview - The Aesthetic Activity in Modern Fiction * The Aesthetics of the Transposition of Reality, Dream, and Mirror: A Comparative Perspective on Can Xue * Ambiguous Subjectivity - Reading Can Xue
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I am an Evenki woman. I am the wife of our people’s last Clan Chieftain. I was born in the winter.
In the forty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are heading into the mountains of Manchuria to seek out The Last Quarter of the Moon (额尔古纳河右岸 / É'ěrgǔnà Hé Yòu'àn) by Chi Zijian. Tramping with me through the snows is its translator, Bruce Humes.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The Book of Shanghai: Chen Danyan & Wang Zhanhei in conversation * The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, upcoming 'Chinese SFF in Translation' anthology from TOR * Yan Lianke Wins 2021 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (urireng / 乌力楞 / the basic social unit of Evenki society; the campsite and the clan)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Northern Hunting Culture - resource for photos of Evenki & other northern ethnic groups * Eels by The Handsome Family * Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong * Animism and Pantheism * Nature and Ethnic Women: An Ecofeminist Reading of Chi Zijian's The Last Quarter of the Moon and Linda Hogan's Solar Storms
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It is not often that one has the opportunity to observe the extinction of an entire civilisation
In the forty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are venturing into Cat Country (猫城记 / Māo Chéng Jì), a science fiction oddity of the Republic of China. Helping me save the nation and stay off the damned reverie leaves is Molly Silk, a doctoral researcher of Chinese Space Policy.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Little Smarty Travels to the Future comic now available in translation * Chinese Science Fiction Goes Global by Regina Kanyu Wang * Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction by Nathaniel Isaacson
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (迷叶 / Mí Yè / reverie leaves)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The Wandering Earth: A Device for the Propagation of the Chinese Regime’s Desired Space Narratives? by Molly herself * The Trial by Franz Kafka * Lao She in London * I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki * The Cat Returns (2002, dir. Hiroyuki Morita)
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The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.
Episode 40 is no ordinary episode! This time TrChFic is crossing over with Couch Command and its esteemed host Keith Hayward to jump right down the Chinese sci-fi wormhole of Liu Cixin's haymaker-punch ending to his Three Body Problem trilogy, Death's End (死神永生 / Sǐshén Yǒngshēng). Hell yes.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * Feng Jicai event: Tales of Old Tianjin w/ XINRAN, Guanghwa Bookshop & Sinoist Books * What's Going Wrong With Translated Chinese Literature? by Dylan Levi King * On UFOlogy with Chinese Characteristics and the Fate of Chinese Socialism
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (警告 / Jǐnggào / warning)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese? by Xia Jia * The Roman and Chinese Empires * The London Chinese Scifi Group and their discussion of The Lighthouse Girl by Baoshu * The Cultural Revolution, Fanaticism and Rationality in The Three-Body Problem - a Master's thesis that gets into some of what Keith and I discuss
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executioner: ᴇᴜᴍᴇɴɪᴅᴇs
In the thirty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Death Notice (死亡通知单 / Sǐwáng Tōngzhī Dān), a fast paced crime thriller with a mean streak. Joining me to inspect the corpses is its polymath translator, Zac Haluza. Expect to be surprised by just how much this work was adapted in translation.
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// NEWS ITEMS // * The Southern Tour Podcast * Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge * China's Muslims and Japan's Empire
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// WORD OF THE DAY // (時差 / shíchā / time difference)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Zhou Haohui NYT article * Exit West by Mohsin Hamid * numbing spice
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'O thou city that surpasseth our understanding! How impressive are they emptiness, and thy commonness, and thy bad taste!'
In the thirty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Hymn to Shanghai (上海之歌 / Shànghǎi Zhīgē), a piece by 'the little critic' himself, Lin Yutang. Joining me to pick apart Lin's biblical condemnation is the roguish raconteur and historian of Old Shanghai, Paul French. Expect to hear a lot about the virtues of liberal cosmopolitanism and the evils of Art Deco and gin liqueur.
// NEWS ITEMS // * Yen Ooi's article in the SFRA review - Chinese Science Fiction: A Genre of Adversity * The Three Body Problem gets picked up by Netflix * a cool book I only just learned exists: Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung
// WORD OF THE DAY // (黄包车 / huáng bāo chē / rickshaw)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Little Tokyo in Old Shanghai * Do Bedbugs Exist in China? by Lin Yutang * Lin Yutang's Chinese typewriter * Extraterritoriality in China * Metropolis (dir. Fritz Lang, 1927) * Man's Fate by Andre Malraux * Shanghai by Yokomitsu Riichi * Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui * The XXth Century - the Nazi magazine that Eileen Chang got her start in
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'The scholar suddenly glimpsed a movement in the darkness. Something dived towards him like a swift bird. The shadowy outline of a person neared him, reaching out with a hand.'
In the thirty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Woman in the Carriage (车中女子 / Chē Zhōng Nǚzǐ), a chuanqi story dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Our guest is its translator, Yilin Wang.
The Woman in the Carriage is a short tale, but the more you look at it, the more you see. Moral lessons, subtle humour, inexplicable strangeness, the roots of modern wuxia...it's all there!
A condensed transcript of the interview in this episode is available on Yilin's website.
// NEWS ITEMS // * Shen Shixi's children's lit controversy * New guidelines for Chinese scifi films from the China Film Administration * The MCLC Modern Chinese Literature Video Lecture Series
// WORD OF THE DAY // (盗贼 / dào zéi / thief)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Yilin's blog on Jin Yong * The term chuanqi * The Man Who Sold a Ghost
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'I think there is no brother in this world as strange as you'
In the thirty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at a video game(!) series called Gujian (古剑/ Gǔ Jiàn). Helping me level up and face my shadow self is Emily Jin, a highly active Chinese science fiction translator, and better yet: a hardcore Gujian fan!
Gujian isn't a Western Tolkeinesque RPG, nor is it a JRPG Final Fantasy-style affair. It's made in China, set in China, and played (mostly) by Chinese gamers. You may not be shocked to learn that it's a Wuxia RPG, with a little Xianxia magic thrown in for good measure.
// NEWS ITEMS // * a new interview with Murong Xuecun * Land Wars and Xi Jinping's father * 2021 Newman prize nominees announced
// WORD OF THE DAY // (剑 / Jiàn / a straight, double-edged Chinese sword)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Paladin - Gujian's predecessor * Fable - Angus' beloved teenage RPG * ancient Yanling 鄢陵 - a 'flower city' * 'the Shadow' in Jungian thought * Philip K Dick, other realities, and the hero's journey * Bi Xie 辟邪 - the mythic animal Emily described * C语言修仙 - the Chinese hacker/xianxia webnovel Emily recommended
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...the lid of the stone coffin slowly shifted open, filling the chamber with a rancid stench of decay. Two blackened arms reached out from the interior...
In the thirty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Necropolis Immortal (仙墓 / Xiān Mù), written by Immortal Amidst Snow in July. Our guest is the novel's irrepressible translator, Etvolare.
Necropolis Immortal blends two particularly Chinese genres: xianxia, and tomb raiding. It's not quite the tomb raiding one associates with Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, as Etvo explains in our interview.
// NEWS ITEMS // * Nick Stember's essay on Sinophilia: Sinophiles between Flatland, Fetish, and Feuilleton * Ge Fei's Peach Blossom Paradise available for pre-order * Tang Fei to be guest of next London Chinese Sci-fi Group meeting
// WORD OF THE DAY // (墓 / Mù / Tomb)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The 'tomb raiding fiction' genre in China * Chinese webnovels as a literary mode * Taiji philosophy
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It was after dusk.
Lanterns illuminated the restaurant.
The lantern light shone on the faces of Fang Kuan and the others, which dripped with sweat. Cold sweat.
In the thirty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at 7 Killers (七殺手 / Qī Shāshǒu), by Wuxia renegade Gu Long. Our guest is one of the top translators of Wuxia webnovels, Deathblade.
7 Killers is classic Gu Long, and an early entry in Deathblade's career as a translator. We use it as a jump-off point to talk about Chinese web fiction, similarities between Wuxia and other genres, and the hyperpowered characters of xianxia web fiction.
// NEWS ITEMS // * The TrChFic Sci-fi Season webpage * Paper Republic's new Yan Ge Sunday Sentence 一周一句 * Tencent web fiction copyright contract drama
// WORD OF THE DAY // (酒 / Jiǔ / Alcohol)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * The SPC forums * The Decay of the Western into the Spaghetti Western * Journey to the West's Influence on Dragon Ball Z * Monkey Island * Deathblade's Wuxia books list * The Witcher novels
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'We Han Chinese outnumber the Jurchen by more than a hundred to one. If the Imperial Court decided to employ honest and loyal men, our great Empire would prevail. With one hundred of our men against one of their worthless soldiers, how could the Jin army win?'
In the thirty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Legend of the Condor Heroes (射雕英雄传 / Shèdiāo Yīngxióng Chuán), the magnum opus of Wuxia grandmaster Jin Yong. Our guest is one of the translators working to bring it into English, Gigi Chang.
Condor Heroes is a huge entry in Chinese literature (both highbrow and lowbrow), and pop culture in general. In this first episode of the podcast's Wuxia season, I begin to get to grips with this absolute behemoth of genre fiction.
// NEWS ITEMS // * Paper Republic's Sunday Sentence 一周一句 * Deng Anqing's Forty Days
// WORD OF THE DAY // (忠肝义胆 / Zhōng Gān Yì Dǎn / Loyal liver, righteous guts)
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // * Mobikes * 'Qi Blasts' in Street Fighter * President Deng Xiaoping as Wuxia nerd * The Assassin, dir. by Hou Hsiao Hsien * Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel * JG Ballard’s Miracles of Life, Yao Xueyin’s Li Zicheng 姚雪垠 李自成, Ma Ka-fai’s new book 马家辉 鸳鸯六七四
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"A true map cannot simply mark out the landmarks, and the most popular tourist sites, it must be able to guide readers through the city’s lesser-known corners, its dimly-lit nooks and rarely-frequented crannies"
In the thirty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Book of Shanghai, a short story collection from Comma Press. Our guest is Karen Wang of the Manchester Confucius Institute
// NEWS ITEMS // * Tiananmen: Lives of the Poets by Gregory Lee * 'The Revolutionary' Nicholas Haggerty on Lu Xun * China's First Pornhub Translator
// WORD OF THE DAY // (捉 / Zhuō / Grasping)
// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE // * 1980s Shanghai * Haipai Literature * Trash management reforms * Suzhou He, the movie * Eddie Huang goes to Shanghai
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"Autumn Grace jumped up from the ground, kicked off her high heels and dashed away, one hand holding up the hem of her gown"
In the thirty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Su Tong's Petulia's Rouge Tin (红粉 / Hóngfěn) Our guest is Anya Goncharova of the Peony Literary Agency
Su Tong on Paper Republic
Penguin China on Twitter
// NEWS ITEMS // * A Summer Beyond Your Reach * Penguin China Zhejiang Series * Barbarians at the Gate x China History Podcast * A Yi x DLK: A Match Held to the Flame
// WORD OF THE DAY // (亲 / Qīn / Dear)
// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE // Ching Shih, invincible pirate
A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language
The Eighth Life
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"Assuming my memory hasn't been obstructed, then something must be interfering with time"
In the thirtieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Ge Fei's Flock of Brown Birds (褐色鸟群 / Hésè Niǎoqún) Our guest is Eric Abrahamsen, one of the founding members of Paper Republic
Ge Fei on Paper Republic
Translator Poppy Toland on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS // * Chen Qiufan's Sixth Tone article * Paper Republic 'have-a-go-at-translation' initiative
// WORDS OF THE DAY // (记忆 / Jìyì / memory)
(叙事者 / Xùshìzhě / narrator)
// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE // * The Invisibility Cloak * Mr Robot, nonrecognition scene * Weird Studies podcast * Penguin Specials
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"Memory comes from forgetting"
In the twenty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Song Aman's Gongsun's Dreams (公孙画梦 / Gōngsūn Huàmèng) Our guest is Michelle Deeter, returning for her second appearance on the show! This story is not yet published in English. The Chinese version features in Song Aman's collection Inland Romance, published in Chinese by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing.
Michelle Deeter's homepage
Song Aman on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS // * Fang Fang's Wuhan Diary // coverage by The Guardian * RIP Rao Pingru
// WORDS OF THE DAY // (魔方 / mófāng / rubik's cube)
(利薄多销 / lìbóduōxiāo / small profits, numerous sales)
// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE // * Song Aman's 49 Degrees * Your Name * ONE 一个 * the Allusionist podcast
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"Dalliances wi ither worlds..."
In the twenty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Yang Lian's Narrative Poem (叙事诗 / Xùshìshī) Our guest is Brian Holton, the premier translator of Chinese-to-Scots!
Publishers: EN - Bloodaxe Books // CN - Huaxia Publishing House
Yang Lian's homepage // Brian Holton on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS // * Chen Quifan on the BBC World Service * Yan Geling on Wuhan lockdown * Fang Fang on Wuhan Lockdown * Wuxia World
// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE // * Yang Lian’s Exilic Poetry: World Poetry, Ghost Poetics, and Self-dramatization * lofi Yang Lian to relax/study to * Samye Ling
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"As the boy's thoughts wandered, the purple and green leaves turned into autumn well water, and then the jute became water, while sparrows skimming the tips of the jute plants were transformed into green kingfishers snapping up tiny shrimp from the water's surface."
In the twenty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Mo Yan's Radish (透明的红萝卜 / Tòumíngde Hóngluóbo). Our guest is Lehyla Heward
Publishers: EN - Penguin China // CN - Chinese Writers Magazine Author
Mo Yan on Paper Republic
Howard Goldblatt on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS & UPCOMING BOOKS // * Floral Mutter // + a Review * Sinopticon * To Hold Up the Sky * Larry Siems and Jeffrey Yang's criticism of Mo Yan * A Mi Manera: Howard Goldblatt at Home: A Self-Interview * Children's perception of the world * The man running beside the car * a little on the Weird
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"A person from one civilisation looks at their surroundings as distinct objects and events and considers them separately. But when a person from another civilisation looks in as an outsider, they prefer to view everything through the lens of political power and try to explain everything based on that perspective."
In the twenty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds (流浪玛厄斯 / Liúlàng Mǎèsī)
It would be tempting to say that Vagabonds is a Chinese science fiction rewrite of Ursula K le Guin’s The Dispossessed. My guest Ken Liu would be the first to stress that while there’s some truth to this, readers would be much better off treating the book as thing unto itself. He’s right- this is a book with no shortage of ideas or interpretations. Storywise, here’s what you need to know: it’s a red socialist planet ‘versus’ a green and blue corpocracy. Sit down, get comfy, and pick a side. Or don’t. Not picking a side may be the point.
Publishers: EN - Simon & Schuster - Head of Zeus // CN - New Star Press
Hao Jingfang on Paper Republic
Ken Liu on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS & UPCOMING BOOKS // * THE HIDDEN GIRL by Ken Liu * SECOND SISTER by Chan Ho Kei * MINECRAFT THREE BODY PROBLEM!!! * Hao Jingfang & Ken Liu's Hugo acceptance speeches * Neoplatonism * Camus on rebellion * Inequality in UK politics * 'Minzhu' in Chinese politics
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"Don't ask from where I have come. My home is far, far away."
In the twenty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Sanmao's Stories of the Sahara (撒哈拉的故事 / Sǎhālāde Gùshì)
Sanmao AKA Echo Chan is a literary hero in China and Taiwan, but only recently has some of that fame begun to spill over into the rest of the world. She’s probably most famous for the time she spent in the Sahara, writing in a lucid, arresting, and playful style about her life there. Sanmao passed away in the 90s but she’s very much alive on the page, as her translator Mike Fu and I discuss.
Publisher: Bloomsbury
// Discussed on the Show // * That We May Live * The Olive Tree * Red Dust * JG Ballard's internment camp
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"I have lived in Tianjin my whole life, and I know its people, with their toughness and competitive streak, their generosity, their determination to be respected, and their refusal to back down. When I illustrate them, it is these qualities I draw."
In the twenty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Feng Jicai's Faces in the Crowd (俗世奇人 / Súshì Qírén)
This is the first time on the show that I’m looking at an illustrated book. Each chapter is a ‘sketch’ of one of old colonial Tianjin’s more quirky characters. They’re all drawn from local legends, and add up to create a really immersive wander through a bygone era.
Publishers: EN - Sinoist Books // CN - People's Literature Publishing House
Feng Jicai on Paper Republic
Olivia Milburn on Paper Republic
// NEWS ITEMS // * A Snake Lies Waiting news * 2019 Publications in Chinese * Feng Jicai's upcoming translation * Goubuli blog -- paywalled! >:( * A blog on the same restaurant, not paywalled * Clay figures article
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"Later, I kept on hoping China would host the Olympics again, but it never happened. After I became a father, I told my son about that night, and he refused to believe China had once been so prosperous."
this is episode 7 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twenty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Baoshu's What Has Passed Shall In Kinder Light Appear (大时代 / dà shídài), available to read in the Broken Stars anthology, edited and translated by Ken Liu.
Baoshu reverses time, sending his protagonist through a life that begins with the Beijing Olympics and ends before the communist revolution. I go it alone on this episode, and maybe it’s for the best because this story made me cry. It’s beautiful.
// Discussed in this Episode // * Philosophy01 Baoshu interview * Ken Liu's favourite lines * On Bo Xilai * Zhao Ziyang, Prisoner of the State - SOURCE - MIRROR
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'The summer isn’t over yet. There are so many fun things to do.'
this is episode 6 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twenty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Xia Jia's A Summer Beyond Your Reach (你无法抵达的夏天/nǐ wúfǎ dǐdá de xiàtiān)
Xia Jia herself joins me via Skype from California to talk about her stories. French culture comes up three times in this episode. I really didn’t see that coming. Xia Jia’s stories do fuse deep thought with deep feeling, which I suppose does sound a bit French. Anyway! It’s a very fun episode, so have a listen.
Translators: Emily Jin, Carmen Yiling Yan, Ken Liu
Publisher: Clarkesworld
// Discussed in this Episode // * Kickstarter & links to online stories * The real life Dragon-horse * Trailer for Holy Motors
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'Everything is going to descend into chaos and disorder. Entropy will accelerate rapidly...'
this is episode 5 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twenty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Han Song's The Fundamental Nature of the Universe (宇宙的本性/yǔzhòu de běnxìng)
A tale of artificial intelligence and ennui. Or should it be angst? Or simply just yanjuan? Musing darkly with me on this episode is its translator Nathaniel Isaacson, author of Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. He translated this story, so he ought to know a thing or two about it!
FULL TEXT - academic access required
Han Song on Paper Republic
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// Discussed in this Episode // * My That's Shanghai! article on Chinese fast rail * The Shanghai Metro Museum
// Handy TrChFic Links // Episode 21 transcript
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'We still have a very long time to get along and very many things to talk about, but let us not speak of morals. In the universe, such considerations are meaningless.'
this is episode 4 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twentieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Liu Cixin's Devourer (吞食者/tūnshí zhě)
This is a grim tale for survival in a predatory galaxy, very much in the mold of The Three Body Problem. Helping me out on this episode is Chinese SF superfan and fellow Dundonian Adam McMurchie. I’m sure he’ll be back on again!
The story was translated by Holger Nahm, and published in The Wandering Earth by Head of Zeus & TOR
// Discussed this Episode // Jiayang Fan on Liu Cixin
The Three Body Problem
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'The robot’s ability to learn was unparalleled, and with the help of its creators it analysed its databank of stories to create a set of scientific laws for storytelling – a model that would later become world-famous. But the mathematical nature of this model was so overwhelmingly complex that only the robot could make head or tail of it.'
this is episode 3 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the nineteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Fei Dao's The Storytelling Robot (讲故事的机器人/jiǎng gùshì de jīqìrén), translated by Alec Ash.
This is a thoughtful tale told by a writer with a melacholic, existential tendency. My favourite! Helping me out here is Matt of the Spectology Podcast. A very chill fellow who really knows a lot about Chinese SF.
This story may also be read online in the original Chinese
// Discussed in this Episode // * An End of Days Story by Fei Dao * The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales by Fei Dao * Fei Dao interview referenced by Matt (in Chinese) * Chinese Mythology Podcast
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'Everything was shrouded in a leaden miasma, an amalgamation of the white mist generated by the boiling aqua regia in the acid baths and the black smoke from the unceasing burning of PVC, insulation, and circuit boards in the fields and on the shore of the river. The two contrasting colors were mixed by the sea breeze until they could no longer be distinguished, seeping into the pores of every living being.'
this is episode 2 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
Chaos reigns in the hyperactive, hyperreal, and highly populated Silicon Isle- a spot just off the coast of Guangdong where downtrodden ‘waste people’ do pitiless, dangerous work for local and global elites. All it takes is a spark, and the whole thing explodes…
In the eighteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide (荒潮/huāng cháo). The translator is Ken Liu and the publishers are Head of Zeus and TOR. Our guest is the author himself!
// Discussed this Episode // * Qiufan on Waste & Guiyu * The movie Arrival * Chaoshanhua
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'The folding city was divided into three spaces. One side of the earth was First Space, population five million. Their allotted time lasted from six o’clock in the morning to six o’clock the next morning. Then the space went to sleep, and the earth flipped.'
this is episode 1 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the seventeenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Hao Jingfang's Folding Beijing (北京折叠/běi jīng zhé dié)
This is a Hugo Award-winning ‘novelette’ translated by Ken Liu that imagines a city that has ‘economised’ by splitting social classes more fundamentally than ever before. It was first published by Uncanny Magazine. Helping me out in this episode is the charming and insightful Lyu Guangzhao of the London Chinese Scifi Reading Group. He’s a legend.
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// Discussed this Episode // Hao Jingfang's essay - I Want to Write A History of Inequality
Paul Mason on automation & future economics
Linus 林路's Chinese SF cinema IG is @sinoscifi
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"Remember, if the police come by in the next few days, just answer their questions the way I taught you."
In the sixteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Chen Zijin's The Untouched Crime (无证之罪/wú zhèng zhī zuì)
This novel is a murder mystery with a twist set in...well the setting depends on whether you’re reading the original Chinese, or our guest Michelle Deeter's English translation, published by Amazon Crossing. I bet you want to know why. So, you’d better hit play. Right?
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// Discussed in this Episode // * Song Aman's '49 Degrees' * 'Burning Ice', The Untouched Crime TV Show
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"Ai-ya! Don’t go on at me!"
"Well if I don’t, who’s going to?"
In the fifteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Yan Ge's The Chilli Bean Paste Clan (我们家/wǒmen jiā)
This is a s-p-i-c-y novel published by Balestier Press about a dysfunctional family and its depraved, conflicted, and frequently disoriented patriarch. Yan Ge has said that it was inspired by her years spent growing up the the chilli bean paste production capital of Sichuan Province. Our guest for this episode is Yan Ge's translator, advocate, and friend, Nicky Harman.
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// Discussed this Episode // 1st chapter online - available from The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing
Nü Voices Women and Chinese Scifi Episode
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"There’s an old saying: the earth is like a vomiting carcass."
In the fourteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Jiang Zilong's Empires of Dust (农民帝国/nóngmín dìguó)
This is an epic of ‘reform literature’ published by Sinoist Books, charting the rise and fall of Guo Cunxian, a ‘rugged individual’ of sorts who lives through the revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and Reform and Opening. What is ‘reform literature’ you ask? Listen and find out, comrade! Our guest is one of the book's two translators, Christopher Payne. His co-translator was Olivia Milburn.
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// Discussed in this Episode // South China Morning Post review
China Channel Dylan Levi King article
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"A weill-kent scholar at the court o King Shenzong o the umqhile Hous o Song, he wis vext at the Five Dynasties, yon hinner-en o the Tang times whan there wis naethin but weir an brulyie: in thae days whit wis Jin’s i the mornin wad be Liang’s bi nicht, an richtlie wis it said: Zhu, Li, Shi, Liu, Guo; Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, Zhou: Fifteen kings thegither Skailt fiftie year o stushie!"
In the thirteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Mossflow, Brian Holton's Scots translation of Water Margin (水滸傳 / shuǐhǔ zhuàn)
Also, please have a giggle at this angry, weirdly homophobic Global Times Article
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"An idyllic island in the midst of boiling oceans. Hot enough to cook a hotpot. One maverick entrepreneur sees a development opportunity and begins to devise the most absurd schemes for environmental protection."
In the twelfth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Chen Si'an's Ocean Hotpot (海洋火锅 / hǎiyáng huǒguō)
This one was translated by Jeremy Tiang and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with Chen Si’an in attendance. I was lucky enough to ask Si'an a question, the answer to which you’ll hear in this episode!
Smog brick article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/01/chinese-vacuum-cleaner-artist-turning-beijings-smog-into-bricks
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// Handy TrChFic Links // Buy Me a Coffee
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"Fire spreads and rages underground, and once the lava’s broken through it will burn up all the weeds, along with the tall trees. Thereupon, therefore, nothing else will rot."
In the eleventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Weeds (野草/yě cǎo) by Lu Xun
Matt Turner has brought new life to one of Lu Xun's more downbeat bodies of work. He and I talk about the whys and hows of this endeavour. Fire does indeed rage underground.
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// Discussed in this Episode // * Formerly published by Foreign Language Press as Wild Grass - translated by Glays Yang & Yang Xianyi * Nick Admussen baihuawen article
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"I tried. I put everything into being an exceptional student. But those things are like water cast out in the desert, they evaporate quickly. Whenever I started something, I would picture its inevitable ending. An apple becomes pips in the trash."
In the tenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at A Yi's A Perfect Crime (猫和老鼠/māo hé lǎoshǔ)
This is dark and existential novel translated by Anna Holmwood wastes neither word nor sentiment on the reader. Prepare for discomfort as we take on the perspective of an alienated highschooler who murders his classmate for no real reason, then goes on the run.
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// Discussed in this Episode // INEQUALITY AND CRIME RATES IN CHINA by Tsun Se Cheong and Yanrui Wu
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"Alive, her body belonged to him; dead, she was his ghost"
In the eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Lust, Caution (色，戒 / Sè, Jiè) by a certain someone called Eileen Chang. Heard of her?
It’s a tale of forbidden love and political intrigue set at a precarious time and indeed a precarious place in Chinese history: the Japanese-occupied foreign concessions of WW2-era Shanghai.
The translation I read is from the Penguin Pocket Classics Edition. Julia Lovell was the translator. Co-hosting with me on this episode is the amazing Claire Hao.
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// Discussed this Episode //
Except of the story available on the Pocket Penguins website
Julia Lovell/Han Shaogong article
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"Howard Goldblatt is Jay Z and Nicky Harman is Nas"
In this episode I'm talking to Dylan Levi King, translator of Dong Xi's Record of Regret. We talk about Xuzhou's dog tacos, Chinese libraries, Ghost in the Shell...and of course Miss Sophie's Diary. Dylan also spoke about the world of Chinese to English translation, his love of Jia Pingwa, and his own growth as a translator.
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// Discussed in this Episode //
- Dylan's Twitter
- His Floating City article
- Entering Qin, his Jia Pingwa article
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"I was so angry I wanted to weep, but I laughed aloud."
In the seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at: The Diary of Miss Sophie (莎菲女士的日记/Shāfēi Nǚshì de Rìjì)
This is a very personal journey of 'Miss Sophie', an outspoken woman navigating all the questions modern life in early 20th century, May Fourth Movement era China is throwing at her. It's frigging fascinating.
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// Discussed in this Episode // The translation I read is from the Beacon Press edition of I Myself am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling.
In Quest of the Writer Ding Ling by Yi-Tsi Mei Feuerwerker
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'It was in the desert that I found poetry.'
In this episode we're talking to Dong Li, translator of The Wild Great Wall (野长城 // Yě Chángchéng) by the poet Zhu Zhu.
Dong Li was born in the PRC and now resides in Germany. He's had fellowships and publications galore, and can speak Chinese, English, German, and French.
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// Discussed in this Episode //
Here's the three poets Dong Li recommends you check out:
- Lorine Niedecker
- Jeffrey Yang
- C D Wright
Dong Li's World Literature Today article www.
Phoneme Media - @phoneme_media
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"This moment countless men up the stairs. Upstairs, Chopin already in the dark. Downstairs, dying alone in a crowd."
In this episode we are looking at: The Wild Great Wall (野长城 // Yě Chángchéng)
It's a brand new release. It's poetic, it's universal and cross-cultural, and yet it's also quite defiantly (I dare to say) Chinese. In a funny sort of way.
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"The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation alongside the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV film and digital channels."
A book fair! Candyfloss and author signings and gazebos? Not quite.
In this episode we're doing something a little different. I'll be recounting my trip to the 2019 London Book Fair and recounting all translated-Chinese-fic discoveries I made and encounters I had. Without disclosing any career ending secrets of course. Jk I have none.
https://olympia.london/whatson/london-book-fair
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// Handy TrChFic Links // Episode Transcript
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"I lit up a cigarette and thought that you shouldn't torture yourself by trying to go against life's grain. The dissolute will take advantage of the young. If you could be happy for a while, then settle for that."
In this episode we are looking at: Leave Me Alone (成都，今夜请将我遗忘 // Chéngdū, Jīnyè Qǐng Jiāng Wǒ Yíwàng) It's the 2014 UK edition published by Fortysix
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // Murong Xuecun's 2010 People's Literature Prize acceptance speech // MIRROR LINK
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// Handy TrChFic Links // Episode Transcript
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"The publicity should focus on how we took a pile of shit and a puddle of piss and turned it into somebody. We must make this clear to the masses."
In this episode we are looking at: Please Don't Call Me Human (千万别把我当人/Qiānwàn Bié Bǎ Wǒ Dāngrén) It's the 2005 No Exit Press edition, no. 14 of its 18th Anniversary Crime & Noir series
// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE // Wang Shuo and Liumang (`Hooligan') Culture by Geremie Barme // MIRROR LINK
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// Handy TrChFic Links // Episode 2 transcript
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Wanting to eat men, at the same time afraid of being eaten themselves, they all look at each other with the deepest suspicion...
In the very first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Diary of a Madman (狂人日记/Kuángrén Rìjì) It's the PRC Beijing Foreign Languages Press translation.
This is a foundational text for modern Chinese literature, and sure enough this podcast keeps on referring back here, to Episode 1. In this grim and surreal tale, a man describes his growing suspicion that his friends, his family, and his entire village has turned cannibal.
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READ THE FULL TEXT HERE
Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism by Frederic Jameson
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// Handy TrChFic Links // Episode 1 transcript
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