About this Event
In partnership with the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, Sinoist Books brings you Women Writing China: Female Authors and Chinese Literature, featuring Li Juan, an acclaimed Chinese essayist writing from the extreme rurality of the Altay region of Xinjiang, and Christopher Payne, translator of Li Juan’s latest book.
We will be discussing Li Juan’s writing, specifically Distant Sunflower Fields (遥远的向日葵地), which charts the lives of three generations of women in Li Juan’s family; what is it to be a woman living in such a community, and how have her experiences as a female writer influenced and taken shape in text?
Christopher Payne will also be speaking about the intricacies of translation and his work with Li Juan.
Featured books:
Li Juan [trans. Christopher Payne], Distant Sunflower Fields (Sinoist Books)
About the speakers
An acclaimed essayist, Li Juan was first published in 1999, and has since written more than ten essay collections. Her work often details her personal experiences of the landscape and Kazakh nomads of Xinjiang’s Altay region. Providing rare insight into the community, her work has been widely praised for its contribution to the genre of narrative non-fiction. Distant Sunflower Fields [trans. Christopher Payne] will be published in 2021 by Sinoist Books.
Associate Chair of English and Chinese Translation at the University of Toronto, Christopher Payne has a background in East Asian Studies, with a particular focus on cultural production from the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Dr Payne has translated authors such as Mai Jia and Jiang Zilong. His academic work can be found in the journals Modern Chinese Literature and Culture and Positions: Asia Critique.
Disclaimer: this session will be recorded for reproduction on social media channels.