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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![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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