Hey all 500+ of you! (One milestone down!) We’re jumping right into the news in this instalment since it’s a little overdue. Do keep your eyes peeled on the Paper Republic website for a new Read Paper Republic series in the very, very near future. This one is guest-edited and includes some of our favourite Chinese poets and translators.
Extracts, stories and poems:
- In July, the Centre for New Chinese Writing featured a story by Chen Qian 陈茜, tr. Emily Xueni Jin, from the collection The Way Spring Arrives
- “The Wall Builder” by Cao Kou, tr. Chen Zeping & Karen Gernant, in the new Asymptote Journal issue
- “A Cloudcutter’s Diary” by Chen Chuncheng, tr. Jack Hargreaves, is in the new issue of Samovar
- “My Fur Rabbit” by Hon Lai-chu, tr. Jacqueline Leung, in the Nashville Review
- “The Future of Ma Lei” by Huang Weikang, tr. Antonia Yanxi Wu
News:
- Nancy Feng Liang and Martyn Crucefix have won the Columbia Journal Spring 2022 Translation Contest with “Seven Poems” by Chen Xianfa. Here’s the announcement, and let me also draw your attention to the Poetry Contest winner by “gaysian poet and editor”, Ally Ang
- The 8th Bai Meigui Translation Competition is still open for submissions! Deadline: September 11th
- Geling Yan is calling for credit where credit is due
- Sinopticon has been shortlisted for Best Anthology at the British Fantasy Awards
- There may be a new Yan Ge novel in Chinese coming soon…
- Weibo announces crackdown on homophones and ‘misspelled’ characters to “stop the spread of harmful information”…
Reviews and releases:
- “Shawn Hoo discusses the philosophical and journeying collection from celebrated poet Xi Chuan”, on Asymptote Journal
- Moving a Stone by Yam Gong, tr. James Shea & Dorothy Tse, is out now!
- In the Roar of the Machine by Zheng Xiaoqiong, tr. Eleanor Goodman, is out now!
- Penguin has launched 8 eco-fiction novels, including 2 translated from the Chinese: Last Quarter of the Moon, and The Man with the Compound Eyes. Here are some quotes from the collection to make you rethink your relationship with the environment
- Chicago Review of Books names Wang Xiaobo’s Golden Age, tr. Yan Yan, as a must-read book for July. Now July has passed, but the book is very much still available, and you can read about it in the NYT here. It’s a very rare thing for a Chinese book to get a second chance at translation! Here’s an excerpt
- Mystery Train by Can Xue, tr. Natascha Bruce, is available for pre-order now. From the preface: “The setting for this novella is similar to Dante’s Purgatory … What were people doing in Dante’s Purgatory? It is Can Xue’s opinion that they were all, without exception, engaged in the work of self-revolution.”
- Graft by Li Peifu, tr. James Trapp, in the Irish Times
- A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts by Wang Yin, tr. Andrea Lingenfelter, is out now!
- A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On by Dung Kai-cheung, tr. Bonnie S McDougall & Anders Hansson, in the Asian Review of Books
- New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction is out now!
- Cocoon by Zhang Yueran, tr. Jeremy Tiang, The Age of Goodbyes by Li Zi Shu, tr. YZ Chin, & The Backstreets by Perhat Tursun (tr. Darren Byler & Anonymous) are on The Millions’ Second-Half of 2022 Most Anticipated list
- Amy Lau’s Memories Of Old Macau: The Story Of My Childhood, tr. Gigi Lam & Dr. Wai Man Chan out now!
- Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke is available for free download
- Astrid Møller-Olsen reviews Mo Yan Speaks
Media:
- Read Duncan Poupard on “Ethnic Minority Language and Sinophone Minority Literature in China”
- A conversation between Chinese translator Zuo Fei and Chinese translation editor Xiao Yue Shan
- Emily Xueni Jin, who wrote the sci-fi essay for the PR Guide, questions the Chineseness of Chinese sci-fi
- Lily Meyer on translation style
- Catch up on the talks from this years BCLT Summer School
- An interview w/ translator Bruce Humes about his work translating and promoting non-Han Chinese literature