Ep 61 - Chen Xiwo and The Book of Sins with Nicky Harman

I loathe reason. Reason is the sort of rubbish you can indulge in when life is sweet, like love and honour. I totally reject it.

In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo. Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman. Here’s what we deal with: pain, incest, and the political uses of shock, horror, and offensiveness. Are you sure about this? You can delete this episode now. Do you choose to hit play?

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet by Bogna Konoir - applies Liu Cixin’s logic to cyberspace
• Sense of Place - new issue of Pathlight Magazine
• Gei Fei’s Peach Blossom Paradise bags spot in translated literature finalist list for US 2021 National Book Awards
• TOR announces full contents of The Way Spring Arrives

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(痛 - tòng - pain)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Nicky’s musical pairing: Stride la Vampa from Il Trovatore
• Angus’ musical pairing: God’s Away on Business by Tom Waits
• Chen Xiwo’s speech on literary censorship in the PRC, given at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club in 2010
• A Banned Take on Contemporary China: Wall Street Journal review of The Book of Sins
• Haunted by Chuck Palahnuik
• Thomas Ligotti, anhedonic pessimist horror writer
• Lit by Mary Karr, a considerably more functional individual
• Various edgy Chinese novels: Playing for Thrills … 1988: I Want to Talk with the World … Dancing Through Red Dust … Shanghai Baby … A Perfect Crime

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Ep 58 - A Que and Flower of the Other Shore with Xueting Ni

The moment I was bitten, I died and became another thing. Now I am loitering on the other shore of the Styx, listening to the past from beyond its waves.

In the fifty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are picking Flower of the Other Shore (彼岸花 / Bǐ'àn Huā), a romantic(!) zombie short story by A Que. Here to help me find sympathy for the undead is the tale’s translator, Xueting Ni. The story will feature in her anthology of translated Chinese sci-fi: Sinopticon.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds shortlisted for the 2021 Arthur C. Clarke Award
• Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing launches new journal & calls for papers
• TrChFIc Meta News: Ximalaya feed censored, stoopid Lu Xun meme blows up

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(丧尸 - sàngshī - zombie)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Intertextuality - big word for a simple concept
• World War Z - the book & the film
• Xueting’s From Kuan Yin to Chairman Mao: The Essential Guide to Chinese Deities
• The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction
• Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Ep 56 - Pai Hsien-yung and Taipei People with Nadia Ho

‘According to the ancient precepts, grief supersedes all formalities’

[ this is episode 4 of our Taiwan Season ]

In the fifty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are introducing ourselves to the Taipei People (台北人 / Táiběi Rén), as written by Pai Hsien-yung. Joining me to question the merits of nostalgia and muse aimlessly on umbrellas and the like is a genuine Taibei ren; the effortlessly hip Nadia Ho.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Alain Charles Asia seeking publishing production freelancers - contact daniel.li@alaincharlesasia.com
• Issue One of ‘Jintian’ - the legendary Chinese lit magazine
• READ: The Killer  撞死了一只羊 by Tsering Norbu
• Two Poems by Bei Dao - commemorating June 4th

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(夢 - màng - dream)

pls note I’ve used the character’s traditional form and local Taiwanese pronunciation here!

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• The Taste of Apples by Huang Chun-Ming tr. Howard Goldblatt
• Dubliners by James Joyce
• Kun opera - Mr Pai’s favourite style
• The May 4th Movement & Battle of Tsingtao
• The Paramount Ballroom in Shanghai

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Ep 49 - The TrChFic Megacrossover Part 2: Moderns

'One morning, Salinger was woken from sleep by deafening noises. Dazed, he gazed outside the window and saw a row of gleaming Baekdu bulldozers, which had been modified from Chonma-ho battle tanks, bearing down on his cabin.'

In the forty ninth episode we continue our megacrossover, this time tackling modern literature. Once more unto the jazz hall, dear friends, once more, as we tackle: lamppost sexuality, mantou typography, disposable(?) wuxia, and the philosophy of chicken nuggets. No, really. I'm not joking. Wait, come back!!!

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Taiwan Year at the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing - Egoyan Zheng Excerpt
• Jeremy Tiang - The World Is Not Enough - is world literature just a ‘spice rack’ for lazy Westerners?
• Lost in Translation: What’s the Problem with Chinese Literature in the West? - Zoom talk w/ Jianan Qian, Nicky Harman, and Eric Abrahamsen
• Reading "The Story of the Stone" with 白先勇 Pai Hsien-Yung and 陳毓賢 Susan Chan Egan - a superstar Zoom talk!

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// PODCASTERS & THEIR CHOSEN STORIES //

Rob and Lee of The Chinese Literature Podcast chose Sealed Off by Eileen Chang

William and Kevin of Rereading the Stone chose Shanghai Foxtrot by Mu Shiying

Yifan of 文化土豆 Culture Potato chose A Bond Undone, Chapter 1 by Jin Yong

and your host Angus chose Salinger and the Koreans by Han Song

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Eileen Chang's time in Shanghai and Hong Kong
• Distortion of time during lockdown
• Mu Shiying, a somewhat forgotten Shanghai modernist
• Modernism & 'mechanophilia'
• Jin Yong & the origins of modern Wuxia
• Chinese pen names
• China’s Image in Han Song’s Science Fiction
• the concept of the 'observer' in quantum physics

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// Episode Sponsor //

Buy Jeremy Bai AKA Deathblade's The Heretic Peacekeeper here:

Amazon: http://mybook.to/9h10eTHP

Kobo, Nook, etc: https://books2read.com/u/mgzxxx

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Ep 46 - The Flock of Ba Hui with Dylan Levi King

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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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Women Writing China: Female Authors and Chinese Literature
• How a Music Streaming Site Became a Safe Space for Leftist Listeners
• Peking Noir with Paul French

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(邪神呼唤 - Xiéshén Hūhuàn - the call of Cthulhu)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• the Cthulhu mythos
• the Ring of Wonder
• the Yi People
• Western Xia as 'lost civilisation'
• Yi Izzy Yu & John Branscum on Ji Yun's weird fiction
• Racism in Lovecraft's writing
• 'Neoreaction' and the fantasy/horror genre

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Ep 43 - Can Xue and I Live in the Slums with Stefan Rusinov

'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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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Yan Ge's White Horse shortlisted for the Warwick Women in Translation prize
• Lovecraftian stories from the Chinese internet: The Flock of Ba Hui

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(审丑 - shěn chǒu - examining ugliness AND/OR the abject, if you like)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Stefan's podcast (it's in Bulgarian!)
• High Culture Fever by Jing Wang
• The Code of Fiction (小说密码) by Ma Yuan
• Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz
• Turtle Feet by Nikolay Grozni
• the 10 clues to solving Mulholland Drive
• Stubborn Dirty Snow - Can Xue at the Asian American Writers' Workshop
• Kafka and the struggles of an absurd existence
• Can Xue interview - The Aesthetic Activity in Modern Fiction
• The Aesthetics of the Transposition of Reality, Dream, and Mirror: A Comparative Perspective on Can Xue
• Ambiguous Subjectivity - Reading Can Xue

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Ep 37 - The Woman in the Carriage with Yilin Wang

'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.

// NEWS ITEMS //

• Shen Shixi's children's lit controversy
• New guidelines for Chinese scifi films from the China Film Administration
• The MCLC Modern Chinese Literature Video Lecture Series

// WORD OF THE DAY //

(盗贼 / dào zéi / thief)

// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Yilin's blog on Jin Yong
• The term chuanqi
• The Man Who Sold a Ghost

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Ep 32 - The Book of Shanghai with Karen Wang

"A true map cannot simply mark out the landmarks, and the most popular tourist sites, it must be able to guide readers through the city’s lesser-known corners, its dimly-lit nooks and rarely-frequented crannies"

In the thirty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at The Book of Shanghai, a short story collection from Comma Press. Our guest is Karen Wang of the Manchester Confucius Institute

// NEWS ITEMS //

• Tiananmen: Lives of the Poets by Gregory Lee
• 'The Revolutionary' Nicholas Haggerty on Lu Xun
• China's First Pornhub Translator 

// WORD OF THE DAY //

(捉 / Zhuō / Grasping)

// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE //

• 1980s Shanghai
• Haipai Literature
• Trash management reforms
• Suzhou He, the movie
• Eddie Huang goes to Shanghai

// Handy TrChFic Links //

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Ep 29 - Song Aman and Gongsun’s Dreams with Michelle Deeter

"Memory comes from forgetting"

In the twenty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Song Aman's Gongsun's Dreams (公孙画梦 / Gōngsūn Huàmèng) Our guest is Michelle Deeter, returning for her second appearance on the show! This story is not yet published in English. The Chinese version features in Song Aman's collection Inland Romance, published in Chinese by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing.

Michelle Deeter's homepage

Song Aman on Paper Republic

// NEWS ITEMS //

• Fang Fang's Wuhan Diary // coverage by The Guardian
• RIP Rao Pingru

// WORDS OF THE DAY //

(魔方 / mófāng / rubik's cube)

(利薄多销 / lìbóduōxiāo / small profits, numerous sales)

// DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE //

• Song Aman's 49 Degrees
• Your Name
• ONE 一个
• the Allusionist podcast

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Ep 24 - Feng Jicai and Faces in the Crowd

"I have lived in Tianjin my whole life, and I know its people, with their toughness and competitive streak, their generosity, their determination to be respected, and their refusal to back down. When I illustrate them, it is these qualities I draw."

In the twenty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are looking at Feng Jicai's Faces in the Crowd (俗世奇人 / Súshì Qírén)

This is the first time on the show that I’m looking at an illustrated book. Each chapter is a ‘sketch’ of one of old colonial Tianjin’s more quirky characters. They’re all drawn from local legends, and add up to create a really immersive wander through a bygone era.

Publishers: EN - Sinoist Books // CN - People's Literature Publishing House

Feng Jicai on Paper Republic

Olivia Milburn on Paper Republic

// NEWS ITEMS //

• A Snake Lies Waiting news
• 2019 Publications in Chinese
• Feng Jicai's upcoming translation
• Goubuli blog -- paywalled! >:(
• A blog on the same restaurant, not paywalled
• Clay figures article

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