Paper Republic’s definitive guide to contemporary Chinese literature in translation features detailed biographical entries covering almost 100 of the most important writers working in the Chinese language today, from Anni Baby to Zhang Yueran, by way of Nobel Prize-winner Mo Yan.
At this time of shifting geopolitical relationships—“decoupling” between China and the US, rapprochement between China and Russia—it is unsurprising that the cultural and intellectual as well as political history of these relationships has attracted increasing attention. Recent volumes on Sino-Soviet “internationalist” interaction is now joined by Arise, Africa! Roar, China!, Gao Yunxiang’s recent study of…
The ’30s and ’40s were some of the first instances of aerial bombardment of civilian populations—and an indication of their destructive power. We often point to the Nazi bombing in Guernica, Spain in 1937—immortalized by Pablo Picasso—as the first instance of what happens when “the bomber gets through”, to paraphrase then-Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. But…
It’s a great pleasure to welcome Colin Thubron to the Asian Review of Books podcast. Travel writer and novelist, Colin has written countless books that bring faraway sights and peoples to English-speaking readers—many of which covered regions in China, Russia, Central Asia and elsewhere on the Asian continent.
In the opening scene of Liu Zhenyun’s 2017 novel, recently translated into English as Strange Bedfellows by the widely acclaimed translators Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin (some critics have gone so far as to assert that Goldblatt’s translations of Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan are better than the originals), we witness the negotiation of…
Trust China to turn white privilege on its head and make a business of it. A decade or two ago, one way expats at loose ends could make a living there, albeit somewhat precariously and less-than-entirely-honestly, was to be “hired by a Chinese company to pose as a professional at events where a Western face…
Sergei Tretyakov is on something of a roll. The Soviet writer has featured in several recent books, including a new translation of (among other plays) Roar, China!, a new biography and a study of the Soviet-led drive for a “Leftist Literary Commons”. He also is a main character, arguably the protagonist, in Edward Tyerman’s Internationalist…
The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between two great powers, subject to years of history, conflict and cooperation. Yet for such an important division, there are surprisingly few crossings, with not one passenger bridge in operation.
The mass aerial bombing that so characterized World War II and the wars that followed didn’t start with the blitz, Dresden or Tokyo, but was instead prefigured by the lethal bombing of Shanghai on 14 August 1937, preceded only by the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War earlier that year.
It is an accident of history that most information technology, from Morse Code to the Internet, was developed in and for English-speaking countries. English, with just 26 letters and no accents or diacritical marks, means that everything from keyboards to displays to internal character codings are simple, deceptively so, because almost no other language makes…
In mid-November, Washington and Beijing mutually agreed to start granting journalist visas again, putting an end to months of reciprocal visa rejections and denials. A perhaps minor, yet still important, thawing among grander narratives of decoupling and worsening relations between the two countries.
A round-up of reviews of works in translation from Chinese, including fiction, story collections, poetry, biographies, classics and philosophy.
It is somewhat inexplicable that it has taken more than 35 years for Liu Xinwu’s The Wedding Party to show up in English. The book was serialized in 1984 and published the next year, winning the Mao Dun Prize and adapted into an 8-episode series for television. Popularity can be the result of hitting a…
In his new (but posthumous) memoir, Shanghai Jewish refugee Paul Hoffmann writes about his three most tumultuous experiences. One was enduring six months of Nazi Vienna, the other the terror inflicted by Sargent Kano Ghoya in the Shanghai Jewish Ghetto, and the third life under the new Chinese regime from 1949-1952. Much has been written…
Shang Qin (1930–2010) is widely considered one of the most influential and original modern Chinese poets. His critical acclaim was earned not only as a modern master of the prose poem but also as one of Taiwan’s leading surrealist poets. This book is the largest selection of his poetry available in English.