Source: Paper Republic (1/21/21)
Read all about it! – News #2
By Jack Hargreaves
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Here it is, what you’ve all been waiting for, the definitive round-up of all things Chinese / literature / translation / everything in-between. It was brilliant after the first instalment to receive requests for newsletter subscription, which is definitely our aim — to have this drop in your inbox every two weeks — but for now it remains in its nascent form. If there’s anything you’d like to see more of, less of, just the right amount of, please comment below. If you’ve stumbled upon news we’ve missed, or on any stories or extracts (I’ve found zero (EDIT: two)), pop them in the comments too.
See you again in two weeks!
News:
1. Acclaimed Chinese-language writer Yeng Pway Ngon 英培安 dies aged 73 — Author of Unrest (tr. Jeremy Tiang), Lonely Face (tr. Natascha Bruce) and much, much more. RIP.
2. Northwest Review open for submissions — they “really, really want to see as much translation as possible for Winter 2021!!”
3. A sneak peek at the cover for the new book by Mo Yan MO YAN SPEAKS — translated & edited by Prof Shiyan Xu w/ a foreword by JC Stalling, to be released Spring 2021 by Cambria Press. Formal announcement to come.
4. Singapore’s Epigram Books to stop publishing in the UK — publisher of Jeremy Tiang’s Singapore Literature Prize-winning novel State of Emergency & Yeoh Jo-Ann’s Impractical Uses Of Cake
5. Applications for BCLT Summer School (19-24 July 2021) open — Jeremy Tiang is the tutor for the Chinese strand & Daniel Hahn for the Multilingual Prose strand
Events:
1. Li Juan and translator Christopher Payne discuss Distant Sunflower Fields, online event — this year will see two of Li Juan’s works published in English; hopefully many more will follow!
2. New Production of Chen Si’an’s 陈思安 play A Counterfeit Life 冒牌人生 (in Chinese; lots of pictures) will be performed at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center 上海话剧艺术中心·艺术剧院 from January 14 to January 24 // 全新改版的《冒牌人生》大剧场版将于1月14日-1月24日在上海话剧艺术中心演出
3. Manchester in Translation 2021 — Keynote by award-winning translator Arunava Sinha, on his career as a translator and the joys and perils of linguistic multiplicity, followed by panels about ‘How the publisher will work with you’ and ‘Surviving and thriving as a literary translator’, with incredible panellists Sophie Hughes, Khairani Barokka, Sawad Hussain and more
4. Kenyon Review Translation Workshop Online July 11–23, 2021
5. Winter Colloquium on Translation from University of Chicago — first event on January 20, “Triple Translation and Decolonisation”
6. Six-Week Translation Series with Vancouver Manuscript Feb 21 – Mar 28 — Registration open!
Extracts and stories:
1. ‘The Winter of 2009’ by Li Juan , tr. Lucy Johnston — Li Juan is The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing’s author of the month.
2. ‘My Very “Ordinary” Shanghainese Grandma’ by Jinghua Qian — the latest from China Narrative is a Twitter obituary charged with love and respect
That’s it for extracts & stories this time around, but we may well have missed some. So if you know of a new story or extract online, comment below or email us at news@paper-republic.org
Reviews and releases:
1. Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge 颜歌, tr. Jeremy Tiang — “It expresses the joys and sorrows of being by yourself in a maddening metropolis, and of feeling estranged yet connected to your origins in previously unthinkable ways.”
2. Hard Like Water, Yan Lianke, tr. Carlos Rojas released in July — “a rip-roaring adventure story”
3. Li Juan, Winter Pasture AND Distant Sunflower Fields, tr. by Jack Hargreaves & Yan Yan, and Christopher Payne, respectively — a double whammy from Nicky Harman about Li Juan’s many voices, “the meditative, the humorous, and the unflinching and matter-of-fact”; she is “droll, unsentimental, clear-eyed and occasionally painfully introspective”
4. Sleepy, Sleepy New Year by Meng Yanan, tr. Izzy Hasson — Izzy won the 6th Bai Meigui Translation Competition, and the book is out just in time for Chinese New Year!
5. Philosophy through Science Fiction Stories — Ken Liu has a new story inside!
6. Profile on Taiwanese Journalist and Writer Zhao Sile and her work Her Battles — the book is as-yet untranslated
7. Translational Spaces Towards a Chinese-Western Convergence By Yifeng Sun — with chapters like ‘Cosmopolitan space and transnational resistance’ & ‘Empowering translation’
8. The Millions’ Most Anticipated Works of 2021’s 1st half — including Yan Geling’s The Secret Talker tr. Jeremy Tiang, My Good Son by Yang Huang and a number of works by diaspora writers
9. World Literature Today’s Notable Translations of 2020 — Four from the Chinese!
10. Singapore Shelf selected picks by Olivia Ho
11. Books and Bao’s pick of 11 Incredible Chinese Novels in Translation — an old post (by internet standards), but I’m happy to shout-out Books and Bao all year round.
Media:
1. Adaptation of From Shore to Shore 漂洋过海 available to listen — “An audio adaptation of the successful touring theatre show which chronicles the complex lives of migrants from China… Stories of love and loss, struggle and survival, create a powerful universal drama.”
2. Eight podcasts all about China — The Little Red Podcast, NüVoices and China History Podcast are personal favourites!
3. The Rarest Mandarin Syllables Database — Find out what 欻 & 覅 mean and how to say them. By Maxwell Joslyn.