Ep 71 - Feng Jicai and A Looking-Glass World with Daniel Li

All the magic lay within their own bodies

In the seventy first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are stepping into A Looking Glass World (单筒望远镜 / Dāntǒng Wàngyuǎnjìng). This is our second encounter with Tianjin’s bard Feng Jicai, and our first (sort of!) with his publisher-in-translation, Daniel Li of Sinoist Books.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Generations of Voices in Chinese Literature: a panel hosted by The World of Chinese
• New Sino-SF just dropped: New Voices in Chinese Science Fiction
• Shenyang in translation: Rouge Street by Shaung Xuetao tr. JT himself

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(庚子年 - gēng zi nián - gengzi year AKA the year of the metal rat)

(from the 60 year cycle of the Chinese calendar)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Skedaddle - a font with Victorian hotel vibes
• Sinoist Books’ new subscription package
• Paul Richardson & Chu Xiaoying’s 2015 market report on Chinese publishing
• the post cultural-revolution scar literature movement
• the Feng Jicai institute 天津大学冯骥才文学艺术研究院

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Ep 66 - Ba Jin and Hong Kong Nights with Luo Tianqi

The rocking of the boat created the illusion that all the lights were moving

In the sixty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are adrift in Hong Kong Nights (香港之夜 / Xiāng Gǎng Zhīyè), as fleetingly recollected by Sichuan’s long-surviving left-anarchist writer, Ba Jin. Joining me in the constellations is fellow Sino-lit podcaster Luo Tianqi – here to talk about revolution, regret, and responsibility. Grab a seat on deck, comrade, brush up on your Bakunin, and let go of your transient identity as sights become sounds, and sounds become sights.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q to broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on January 26
• The Sons of Red Lake and Chinese Elemental Philosophy - Sinoist Books’ blog
• The Way Spring Arrives gets a beautiful Chinese edition
• A dialogue between past and future show guests Mike Fu and Jenna Tang
• KakaoEntertainment buys Wuxiaworld - plus thoughts from the translators

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(家 - jiā - home/family)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Tianqi’s podcast
• Various translated Ba Jin essays available on Anarchy Archives
• Tianqi’s musical pairing: Hong Kong Nights 香港之夜 by Teresa Teng 鄧麗君
• Angus’ musical pairing: Hieroglyph by Cynic
• Dissenting from Ba Jin by Geremie Barmé // Available on DOUBAN and GDOCS
• Family by Ba Jin (trans by Sidney Shapiro)
• Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho
• Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
• Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage
• The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction by Terry Eagleton

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Ep 62 - Liu Cixin and The Wandering Earth with Jairo Morales

Before us stood the long abandoned skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Sun's weak light casting their long shadows across the quiet ice of the New York Harbor. In my tipsy haze, tears began to gush down my cheeks. 

In the sixty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are setting sail on The Wandering Earth (流浪地球 / Liúlàng Dìqiú), drawn up and captained by Liu Cixin himself. Calling into the show from the Peruvian Engine Bunker is Jairo Morales. We get deep into postnationalism, censorship, cultural transmission, and the sublime spectacle of the utter annihilation of our planet’s fragile surface. Goodbye solarpunk, hello solardoom.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• The Tyranny of Neutrality - Virginia L Conn reviews AI 2041 
• TrChFic Meta News: The Leeds Centre Taiwan Literature Symposium
• HKKH interviews Dorothy Tse
• Announced by Tweet: Amazon Crossing will publish a translation of Han Song’s Hospital Trilogy

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(短暂的 - Duǎnzànde - ephemeral/efimero)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Jairo’s musical pairings: Gymnopédie No 1 by Erik Satie & 消愁 - Xiao Chou (Drown One's Sorrows) by Mao Buyi 毛不易
• Angus’ musical pairing: Black Light Machine by Frost
• Magical realism from Latin America
• The Emerging Japanese Superstate by Herman Kahn - 70s think tank guy does a yellow peril, history buries him
• Chuang article: The Wandering Earth: A Reflection of the Chinese New Right
• 200 Drones Fall Out Of The Sky In China’s Zhengzhou
• Ken Liu’s anthology of Chinese sci-fi: Invisible Planets
• The Cultural Revolution as ‘partially denouncable’

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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 59 - More Than One Child with Shen Yang and Nicky Harman

It is a long and painful process to see oneself clearly, as is the process of returning to one’s childhood.

In the fifty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are talking with someone who is More Than One Child (隐形小孩 / Yǐnxíng Xiǎohái), a woman as friendly as she is fearless: Shen Yang. She’s here on this episode, and so is her translator, friend-of-the-pod, and returnee guest Nicky Harman. The book is forthcoming from the excellent publisher Balestier Press.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• From July 2nd: PEN Translates awards announced, including two titles from the PRC
• Dylan Levi King tries out movie commentary for Obsession 疯狂的代价 (1988)
• New book from Astra House: Yu Xiuhua’s Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm
• Publisher’s Weekly shares a Spotlight on Six Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(葳蕤 - wēi ruí - lush, burgeoning foliage)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• '琵琶語 Pipa Yu' by 林海 Lin Hai - Shen Yang’s musical pairing
• When Everything Is Green by Julie Christmas & All The World is Green by Tom Waits - Angus’ musical pairings
• The One Child Policy
• The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
• Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China  by Rao Pingru, trans. Nicky Harman
• Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World's Next Superpower by Roseann Lake
• Robert Winston’s BBC program on memory… sadly it’s not streaming anywhere

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Ep 52 - Monkey King: Journey to the West with Julia Lovell

‘An unruly monkey like you has to be restrained somehow, otherwise you’ll never reform’

In the fifty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are departing from the Tang Empire on a haphazard Journey to the West (西游记 / Xī Yóu Jì). Talking me through the transformations is Julia Lovell, translator of JttW’s latest, extremely readable English translation.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• A new Can Xue translation is on the way
• Yang Lian and Brian Holton win first Sarah Maguire Prize
• ‘Jia Pingwa: Master Storyteller of Rural China’ event, Fri 9 Apr

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(游 - yóu - journey)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Can’t Get You Out of My Head,  (Dir. Adam Curtis, 2021)
• The Sinister Way by Richard von Glahn
• Transforming Monkey by Hongmei Sun
• The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel by Andrew Plaks
• Cultural Syncretism (in a silly video game)
• (Breaking the) rules of fantasy fiction

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The 50th Episode Party!

Starting a podcast is not a dinner party

In the fiftieth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, I put my feet up and have a beer! Woohoo!

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Beijing Lights Archives | Spittoon

• Sci-Fi Writer or Prophet? The Hyperreal Life of Chen Qiufan

• Mither Tongue: Jidi Majia's poetry in 3 Scots dialects

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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 48 - The TrChFic Megacrossover Part 1: Classicists

'What sort of a fiend are you that you dare change into my appearance, take my descendants captive, occupy my immortal cave, and assume such airs?'

In the forty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are doing something a little different! In this episode half of a small army of Chinese lit podcasters join me to discuss their favourite stories from dynastic China.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• The TrChFic Mailing List
• Distant Sunflower Fields - OUT NOW
• Ma Jian on China's Efforts to Extinguish Memory

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// PODCASTERS & THEIR CHOSEN STORIES //

Mason of the Plum Forest Podcast chose 'The Thunder God', from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio

John of Chinese Lore chose Chapter 2 of The Outlaws of the Marsh, tr. Sidney Shapiro

Yang of The Chinese Mythology Podcast chose 'Weaver Shi Meets a Friend at the Strand from Stories to Awaken the World (醒世恒言) by Feng Menglong, tr. Ted Wang and Chen Chen

Tianqi of Stories from a Chinese Studio chose ‘Two Monkeys’, from Journey to the West tr. Anthony C Yu

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Breakfast with Socrates
• the translator Herbert Giles
• the 1986 TV adaptation of Journey to the West and the 1978 Japanese adaptation
• 'Sworn brothers' and other kinds of kindship in China
• the dark 'Fake Wukong' theory
• the author Feng Menglong

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Ep 45 - Strange Beasts of China with Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang

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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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Faraway by Lo Yi-Chin - coming out this September
• How Lin Qi's Poisoning Death Shocked China - A suspected murder by poisoning related to the Three Body Netflix adaptation
• Round up, Round up - News #1 - Paper Republic now has its own news roundup!

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(异 - Yì - strange/different)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• The Shanhaijing
• Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
• Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
• Attrib by Eley Williams
• I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
• the mighty 小儿赶牛 - red bull & ergoutou baijiu
• the seven sages of the bamboo grove
• The 'san xian/third line' industrialisation plan

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