“Thank You, Mr Nixon” by Gish Jen
Thank You, Mr Nixon, Gish Jen’s latest work of fiction, comprises eleven loosely linked short stories essentially about people in the flow of a modern Chinese diaspora.
New Book Announcement: “The Substance of Fiction: Literary Objects in China, 1550–1775” by Sophie Volpp
Do the portrayals of objects in literary texts represent historical evidence about the material culture of the past? Or are things in books more than things in the world? Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are…
Podcast with Kerry Brown, co-author of “China Through European Eyes: 800 Years of Cultural and Intellectual Encounter”
Europeans have been writing about China for centuries–ever since The Travels of Marco Polo described it as a faraway and mystical kingdom. European thinkers like Voltaire and Montesquieu used China to support their own theories of political philosophy, then writers in early modernity tried to explain why China was falling behind—and then, with the rise…
New Book Announcement: “Into the Desert” by Xuemo
This is the story of two women in Western China in the 1990s, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, near the site of the ancient Silk Road. Bound together by both poverty and tradition, they embark upon a perilous journey to change their lives. In Into the Desert, acclaimed Chinese author Xuemo has recreated…
New Book Announcement: “Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China” by Jennifer Lin
In 1973, Western music was banned in the People’s Republic of China. But in a remarkable breakthrough cultural exchange, the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted a tour of closed-off China, becoming the first American orchestra to visit the communist nation. Jennifer Lin’s Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China, provides a fabulous…
“Carbon Technocracy Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia” by Victor Seow
In 2021, China launched the world’s largest carbon market in furtherance of its “dual carbon” goals of peak emissions in 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. That same year, China set a new record for coal production, extracting over 4 billion tons. How any country could reconcile such output with rising environmental standards remains to…
New Book Announcement: “The United States vs China: The Quest for Global Economic Leadership” by C Fred Bergsten
In this sweeping and authoritative analysis of the competition for global economic leadership between China and the United States, C Fred Bergsten draws on more than 50 years of active participation as a policymaker and close observation as a scholar.
“Taobao: Stories” by Dan K Woo
If you thought the Taobao in the title of this new collection of stories is that Taobao—China’s version of Amazon, except perhaps more so—you’d be right. The shopping website is mentioned throughout the collection, showcasing the unprecedented availability of consumer goods in China regardless of quality or practicality.
“China Through European Eyes: 800 Years of Cultural and Intellectual Encounter” by Kerry Brown and Gemma Chenger Deng
China Through European Eyes is a very helpful and well-presented annotated anthology of extracts from European writers on China. The authors presented range from Marco Polo to Roland Barthes, which gives readers wide and various perspectives on the subject; some see China as a threat, others romanticize it, and still others find inspiration in its…
New Book Announcement: “Returning East” by Lauca
To keep a promise to his calligraphy teacher, JJ travels on the ocean liner “Le Cambodge” to Shanghai via Hong Kong in 1954. On board, he makes friend with Fred, and JJ’s longing for friendship will divert him from keeping his promise. After being stranded in Hong Kong with no money or passport, JJ agrees…
“The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Lives of Two Translators between Qing China and the British Empire” by Henrietta Harrison
Given the likely plight of the many interpreters left to the tender mercies of the Taliban in the recent Afghan conflict, this book is timely, because it highlights the fact that historically interpreters have taken risks or been exposed to dangers not of their own making. They’re not just anonymous or culturally liminal figures hovering…
“Four Treasures of the Sky” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Drawing on the Chinese classic novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s debut novel is a beautifully-written if haunting story set in coastal Shandong province, San Francisco and Idaho. Eight years ago Jenny Tinghui Zhang learned from her father, after he traveled through Idaho, of the brutal murders of Chinese men in the…
“The Shadow of the Empire” by Qiu Xiaolong
Di Renjie or Judge Dee (as he’s better known in Western popular culture) was a Tang Dynasty magistrate first fictionalized in an anonymous 18th-century Chinese detective novel. Dutch diplomat author Robert van Gulik translated and popularized the character in a series of novels beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the 1960s. The character…
New Book Announcement: “The Musha Incident: A Reader on the Indigenous Uprising in Colonial Taiwan”, edited by Michael Berry
On October 27, 1930, members of six Taiwanese indigenous groups ambushed the Japanese attendees of an athletic competition at the Musha Elementary School, killing 134. The uprising came as a shock to Japanese colonial authorities, whose response was swift and brutal. Heavy artillery and battalions of troops assaulted the region, spraying a wide area with…
“The Paper Republic Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature”
Paper Republic is an alliance of Chinese-to-English translators who have come together to promote Chinese literature in English translation, with a focus on new writing. It has now published its own guide to contemporary Chinese literature, a directory of authors and publications prefaced by six essays on different aspects of Chinese writing. Each entry in…
