January 22, 2021
If anyone is reading this notebook — don’t come looking for me. Don’t.
In the forty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are undergoing black initiation into The Flock of Ba Hui (巴虺的牧群 / Bāhuī de Mùqún). Returning to the show to rescue me from the abyss - or hurl me into it - is the extremely online Dylan Levi King. We have quite a beast to wrestle with this episode. Lovecraftian fiction, from the Chinese internet, curated, translated and packaged in paratexts by two particularly unorthodox individuals.
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(邪神呼唤 - Xiéshén Hūhuàn - the call of Cthulhu)
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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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August 30, 2020
'The scholar suddenly glimpsed a movement in the darkness. Something dived towards him like a swift bird. The shadowy outline of a person neared him, reaching out with a hand.'
In the thirty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Woman in the Carriage (车中女子 / Chē Zhōng Nǚzǐ), a chuanqi story dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Our guest is its translator, Yilin Wang.
The Woman in the Carriage is a short tale, but the more you look at it, the more you see. Moral lessons, subtle humour, inexplicable strangeness, the roots of modern wuxia...it's all there!
A condensed transcript of the interview in this episode is available on Yilin's website.
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(盗贼 / dào zéi / thief)
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January 12, 2020
"Later, I kept on hoping China would host the Olympics again, but it never happened. After I became a father, I told my son about that night, and he refused to believe China had once been so prosperous."
this is episode 7 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twenty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Baoshu's What Has Passed Shall In Kinder Light Appear (大时代 / dà shídài), available to read in the Broken Stars anthology, edited and translated by Ken Liu.
Baoshu reverses time, sending his protagonist through a life that begins with the Beijing Olympics and ends before the communist revolution. I go it alone on this episode, and maybe it’s for the best because this story made me cry. It’s beautiful.
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December 18, 2019
'The summer isn’t over yet. There are so many fun things to do.'
this is episode 6 of 7 in our Chinese Science Fiction Season
In the twenty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Xia Jia's A Summer Beyond Your Reach (你无法抵达的夏天/nǐ wúfǎ dǐdá de xiàtiān)
Xia Jia herself joins me via Skype from California to talk about her stories. French culture comes up three times in this episode. I really didn’t see that coming. Xia Jia’s stories do fuse deep thought with deep feeling, which I suppose does sound a bit French. Anyway! It’s a very fun episode, so have a listen.
Translators: Emily Jin, Carmen Yiling Yan, Ken Liu
Publisher: Clarkesworld
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