February 5, 2021
When you've stared at the past for so long that time dissolves, you'll be able to wake from your slumber
In the forty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are falling into Beijing Coma (肉之土 / Ròu Zhī Tǔ). Avid Ma Jian reader Ronald Torrance is here to guide me from perimeter to epicentre of this colossal novel, and the weighty events it reckons with. Even without politics, stakes are high here: life/death, time/memory, flesh/history, and the intimate bonds that can exist between translators and writers.
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(地标 - Dìbiāo - Landmark)
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January 14, 2021
In bars like this, on nights like this, the people of Yong'an would talk of death
In the forty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are hunting for the Strange Beasts of China (异兽志 - Yì Shòu Zhì). Two very special guests are joining me this time - the book's author Yan Ge and its translator Jeremy Tiang. If I sound a little off-kilter this episode, it's because I'm star struck!
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(异 - Yì - strange/different)
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December 22, 2020
Every person's heart is an island, trapped by water, sequestered from the world
In the forty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are going in search of Peach Blossom Paradise (人面桃花 - Rénmiàn Táohuā) by Ge Fei. Rowing me through the lingering mists and dark waters is craftmaster Canaan Morse, its translator.
Ge Fei has been covered once before on this show. We did his Flock of Brown Birds in Episode 30. This time we are dealing with something less surreal. On the surface, it's a typical 'important Chinese novelist writes historical saga' affair. But beneath...
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(徒 - Tú - in vain)
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November 26, 2020
'Underneath the hole is another hole. Do you dare go down?'
In the forty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are grappling with the experimental literature of Can Xue, as embodied in I Live in the Slums. Helping me train for the performance of a lifetime is Chinese-to-Bulgarian translator & friend of the pod, Stefan Rusinov.
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(审丑 - shěn chǒu - examining ugliness AND/OR the abject, if you like)
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![Ep 19 - Fei Dao and The Storytelling Robot with Matt Michaelson]()
November 26, 2019
'The robot’s ability to learn was unparalleled, and with the help of its creators it analysed its databank of stories to create a set of scientific laws for storytelling – a model that would later become world-famous. But the mathematical nature of this model was so overwhelmingly complex that only the robot could make head or tail of it.'
this is episode 3 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the nineteenth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Fei Dao's The Storytelling Robot (讲故事的机器人/jiǎng gùshì de jīqìrén), translated by Alec Ash.
This is a thoughtful tale told by a writer with a melacholic, existential tendency. My favourite! Helping me out here is Matt of the Spectology Podcast. A very chill fellow who really knows a lot about Chinese SF.
This story may also be read online in the original Chinese
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