The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In the one hundredth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are throwing a goodbye party! Friends, listeners, and past guests joined me for a little reminiscing and musing. I drank precisely one beer. The show is going on hiatus, exactly as I’ve been warning you for the past ten episodes or so.

The feed will stay up indefinitely, and it’s likely that I will be migrating the hosting to a free service to make that permanent online presence economical.

I expect I will return to the show, though it will probably be years from now.

再见！It has been a pleasure, pengyous.

‘I wrote the asinine words ‘liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart.’

In the ninety ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we’re taking a lengthy holiday with Mo Yan in The Republic of Wine, so get your visa stamped and your baijiu in hand. This time there are two discussions. First, sober, with returnees Dylan Levi King and Michelle Deeter. Then, drunk with DLK and poet/translator Martin Winter. Listen all the way through, comrade, to hear two of us curse then proclaim our love for a prominent figure in the field. This is the penultimate episode; the time for tomfoolery is almost over.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Tongueless by Lau Yee-wa
• Helen Wang interviews Sabina Knight
• Mourning a Breast by Xi Xi

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(酒量 – jiǔliàng – capacity for liquor)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• The Diary of a Madman - Lu Xun
• Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh // (plus her stories set in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Jiangsu)
• UK's Eat Out to Help Out & Japanese govt’s Sake Viva! drive
• Cannibalism in Joyce and Mo Yan
• Postsocialism and Cultural Politics

‘The final cut – the coup de grace – entered Qian’s heart, from which black blood the colour and consistency of melted malt sugar slid down the knife blade'

In the eighty fifth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are experiencing the lacerating pains of Sandalwood Death, as dealt to us by Nobel literature prizewinner Mo Yan. It’s time to rip Shandong Province apart in a rebellion for the songbooks. Weapon in hand, the Sun Wukong to my Yue Fei is translator Stefan Rusinov. We laugh, we brood, we hallucinate, and we shake our fists at the craven villain Yuan Shikai, all the while pondering: is torture an artform?

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• A Record of My Battle with the Virus by Han Song, translated by Michael Berry

• Xi Xi: Can We Say // a special issue on the recently late writer

• Gu Long’s Blood Parrot, translated by Deathblade

• SCMP takes a look at the new prequel to The Wandering Earth

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(喵 – miāo – meow)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Gao Xingjian - another Han nobel lit prize winner

• Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

• Jiaozhou, Imperial Germany’s Shandong colony

• Stefan’s previous TrChFic appearance, discussing Can Xue

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// Handy TrChFic Links //

Help Support TrChFic // Episode Transcripts

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‘Generation after generation, people have lived in this massive sick ward we call the universe ’

In the eighty fourth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are lost deep inside Hospital, the first entry in an abyssal trilogy by show favourite Han Song. Old-time wardmates Michael Berry and Mingwei Song are here too, groaning in the darkness.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Tencent’s Three Body Problem series arrives… on Youtube!

• A podcast interview w/ Yan Ge & Jeremy Tiang on Strange Beasts of China

• Bookshop.org puts out a Lunar New Year reading list 🐇🐇🐇

• New book: New Medieval Books: A History of Chinese Literature by Zhang Longxi

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// WORDS OF THE DAY //

(生存 – shēngcún – survival)

(痛苦 – tòngkǔ – pain)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Remains of Life, tr by Michael

• Lu Xun’s Diary of a Madman // [FULL TEXT]

• Life extension gene therapy & the first gene edited babies

• The Reincarnated Giant - CUP’s Chinese sci-fi anthology

• Han Song’s Weibo account

• Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary - Michael’s meta-book

‘If you lived in one of the lanes of Puxi, the moment you stepped out your door, you would find yourself in the thick of urban life in all its boisterous variety.'

In the eighty second episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are paying a visit to The Sanctimonious Cobbler (骄傲的皮匠 / Jiāo'ào de Píjiàng), a novella by Wang Anyi which can be read in By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas. Wandering with me down the longtang to cast an eye across the little affairs and petites affaires of shopkeeper Shanghai is friend of the pod and Malta-based scholar Lehyla Heward.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Louise Law’s Ark E Newsletter for updates on Hong Kong lit
• Durham University’s Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies joins Twitter (at this late hour)
• Uchiyama Bookstore reopens (Sources: Ting Guo, China Plus, Shine)
• Two Lines Press announces translation of Xu Zechen’s Beijing Sprawl + a reissue of his Running Through Beijing

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(中篇小说 - zhōngpiān xiǎoshuō - novella/novelette)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Kirk Denton’s Modern Chinese Literary Thought
• the foreign graveyard in Jing’an & Xujiahui’s Catholic history
• the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature
• One Evening in the Rainy Season by Shi Zhecun
• Comma Press’ The Book of Shanghai and my episode on it
• The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

A star’s coming of age was the process of slowly getting uglier.

In the eighty first episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, writer/researcher Yen Ooi and I are gazing up at The Stars We Raised (逃跑星辰 / táopǎo xīngchén), a short story by Xiu Xinyu featured in the all-women + nonbinary anthology The Way Spring Arrives. Once more, a Chinese science fiction story is taking us down to the countryside for melancholy reflections on the pains of growing up. Yen and I dig into the pains of publishing too, from gender to generation and from style to synthesis.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• I will be hosting Sinoist Books’ November 2022 Book Club on Li Peifu’s Graft
• Yan Ge’s next book Elsewhere is incoming – and it’s not a translation
• New academic anthology Readings in Chinese Women’s Philosophical and Feminist Thought could make for a decent Christmas present, if you’ve got a spare £90

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(仁 - rén - human kind(ness))

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Yen’s musical pairing: Debussy - Suite bergamasque, L. 75 - I. Prélude
• Angus’ musical pairing: Breaking Benjamin - Had Enough (live, acoustic)
• Rén 仁 by Yen Ooi
• UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo
• How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
• A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers
• The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel
• We Could Not See the Stars by Elizabeth Wong

‘In the same spot where Father died, the dead body of a deer lay prostrate in the rain.’

In the eightieth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, it’s Raining Zebra Finches (斑胸草雀 / bān xiōng cǎo què). Blame for this troubling meteorological occurrence falls upon Taiwanese author Chiou Charng-Ting; it’s her story. Under the weather with me is her translator, May Huang. In our discussion we’ll be testing the limits of our earthly knowledge and dreaming of other philosophies. When nature stops hiding and springs the inexplicable upon us, where else is there to turn?

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Balestier Press publishes The Pidgin Warrior, David Hull’s translation of a kung fu satire written in the 1930s by Zhang Tianyi

• A horror followup to Sinopticon, titled Sinophagia, is on the way

• Can Xue’s Mystery Train published by Sublunary Editions on Oct 18th

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(梅雨季 - méiyǔ jì - plum rain season)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Angus’ musical pairing: The Alien from the Annihilation OST

• May’s musical pairings: Ivy by Taylor Swift & Mother’s Daughter by Miley Cyrus

• Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han

• Jeff Vandermeer’s Area X/Southern Reach Trilogy

• Owlish by Dorothy Tse (tr. Natascha Bruce)

• Quantum entangled communication in His Dark Materials

• Plato’s allegory of the cave

‘History is nothing more than a complex construction of records and observations’

In the seventy ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction podcast, we’re riding the Express to Beijing West Railway Station (开往西站的特别列车 / kāiwǎng xī zhàn de tèbié lièchē), and I’ll be buying my ticket from none other than the author herself, Mu Ming. En route we’ll be passing by the scenic works of William Blake and Christopher Nolan, and pondering whether Shakespeare and Lu Xun would make good Netflix writers (see Patreon feed). Long-time TrChFic listeners will also already know all-too-well: you’re going to hear me enthuse about trains. Sorry.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• WATCH: Qiufan Chen on How Chinese Science Fiction Imagines Our Future
• WATCH: Gloria S Tseng on Biblical Imagery in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature
• READ: a new issue of Chinese Literature and Thought Today with a newly translated Han Song story & an essay on Little Smarty Travels to the Future

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(想象力 - xiǎngxiànglì - imagination)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Mu Ming’s musial pairing: The Grandmaster OST
• Angus’ musical pairing: The End Where We Start by The Black Queen
• The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard Hemming
• The Dragon by Ray Bradbury
• Good Hunting by Ken Liu
• The Serpentine Band 宛转环 by Mu Ming herself
• The Snow of Jinyang 晋阳三尺雪 by Zhang Ran
• Vital: The Future of Healthcare - a sci fi anthology
• Kaili Blues 路边野餐 (2015, dir Bi Gan)

‘Then each Boxer lad who loves fighting and fun, let him follow the bonnets of bonnie Prince Tuan’

In the seventy eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding to war behind Bonnie Prince Tuan, a poem by a Chinese Scotiaphile that draws a parallel between two sets of rebels: the Jacobites of the Scottish highlands and the Boxers of northern China. Here to lend some Boxer brawn to my Jacobean jesting is Lee Moore of the Chinese Literature Podcast – a show that has already devoted an episode to this madness.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Bad Kids by Chen Zijin, a new Michelle Deeter translation, is out!

• Shaanxi Opera by Jia Pingawa, a new Nicky Harman + Dylan Levi King translation, is out!

• Found in Translation - Nicky Harman considers the state of translated Chinese lit

• Why do China books all look the same? - an article from The China Project (formerly SupChina)

• A third translation of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass enters the world

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// WORDS OF THE DAY //

(廣記不如淡墨 - guǎng jì bùrú dàn mò - the best memory is not as good as the palest ink)

(雅各布派 - yǎ gè bù pài - Jacobite)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Angus’ musical pairings: Wolves of Winter by Biffy Clyro, and I’m Shipping up to Boston by Dropkick Murphyd

• Lee’s musical pairing: Ride my Monster by Enter the Haggis

• My episode with Sinoist Books’ Daniel Lee on A Looking-Glass World

• The Jacobite risings led by Bonnie Dundee and Bonnie Prince Charles

• 多少恨 - the novella that Eileen Chang apparently based on Jane Eyre

• Can Xue and Kafka - here discussed by Stella Zhu

“You can give me your empty words if you like; I’ve come to fill out the forms permitting us to withdraw from society.”

In the seventy seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are turning our cheek to Lenin's Kisses (受活 / shòu huó) by Yan Lianke. Yes, I’m finally dealing with him – and not alone. Piotr Machajek is here to show me how to Liven, as we look into the pros and cons of entering and retreating from a society that just cannot leave things be.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Wang Xiaobo’s Golden Age gets a retranslation & a spot in the NYT
• Mildly interesting: a 2005 poll comparing expert & popular rankings of Chinese authors
• Wang Shuo appears to enter Twitter and announce a new book
• Paper Republic profiles Fujianese poet Wu Ang

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// WORDS OF THE DAY //

(狗带 - gǒu dài - go die)

(入世，出世 - rùshì, chūshì - enter society, withdraw from society)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Angus’ musical pairing - Nevergreen by Emancipator
• Piotr’s musical pairing - The Perfect Revival Plan by Zhang Ling - 我是老张BIG JOHN
• Jiayang Fan in the New Yorker: Yan Lianke’s Forbidden Satires of China
• the concept of ‘habitus’ in Bordieu’s thought
• the concept of ‘biopolitics’ in Focault’s thought
• Reference News - a heritage PRC newspaper covering ‘the outside world’
• the commodification of Mao Zedong & Maoism