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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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 8, 2020
I am an Evenki woman.
I am the wife of our people’s last Clan Chieftain.
I was born in the winter.
In the forty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are heading into the mountains of Manchuria to seek out The Last Quarter of the Moon (额尔古纳河右岸 / É'ěrgǔnà Hé Yòu'àn) by Chi Zijian. Tramping with me through the snows is its translator, Bruce Humes.
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(urireng / 乌力楞 / the basic social unit of Evenki society; the campsite and the clan)
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![Ep 33 - Jin Yong and Legend of the Condor Heroes with Gigi Chang]()
May 30, 2020
'We Han Chinese outnumber the Jurchen by more than a hundred to one. If the Imperial Court decided to employ honest and loyal men, our great Empire would prevail. With one hundred of our men against one of their worthless soldiers, how could the Jin army win?'
In the thirty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Legend of the Condor Heroes (射雕英雄传 / Shèdiāo Yīngxióng Chuán), the magnum opus of Wuxia grandmaster Jin Yong. Our guest is one of the translators working to bring it into English, Gigi Chang.
Condor Heroes is a huge entry in Chinese literature (both highbrow and lowbrow), and pop culture in general. In this first episode of the podcast's Wuxia season, I begin to get to grips with this absolute behemoth of genre fiction.
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(忠肝义胆 / Zhōng Gān Yì Dǎn / Loyal liver, righteous guts)
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