We have often spoken of  Inspector Chen Cao, the hero of eight detective stories by the Sino-American writer Qiu Xiaolong.

While in Paris before joining in Lyon the international festival “Quai du Polar” he could talk about the “Short stories of Red Dust” (Liana Levi, 2013) (1), the second collection which has just been published.

The City of Red Dust is part of the former French Concession and is a group of traditional houses of… Lire la suite

For a better understanding of the writer Chi Zijian, I read her short story collections which, outside of China, are hardly mentioned. Yet some of them are of very high standard.

She was born in 1964 in the far north of China, near the small town of Mohe, along the Amur River which marks the border with Russia.

She leaves her hometown to a Normal school and then to Beijing Normal University and the Lu… Lire la suite

This article has been posted on the 17^th of september 2012, but the link with the English version has been broken. We are also very happy to mention that Tan Twan Eng has won yesterday, the 14^th of march, the Man Asia literary prize…

Tan Twan Eng is a Malaysian writer of Chinese origin who shares his time between the island of Penang where he was born and South Africa… Lire la suite

With a great book by Chi Zijian, “The last quarter of the moon” (1) we discover the twilight of the Evenki, nomadic reindeer herders on “The right bank of the Argun” as mentioned by a more suitable original title.

1 – The Evenki and the Argun River:

The Argun River, along 900 kilometers is the border between China and Russia and near Mohe, the most upnorth city in northern China, joins… Lire la suite

The award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to the Chinese writer Mo Yan led to an intense debate in the media, both in China and abroad.

Some have strongly regretted that a Communist Party member, vice-president of the Writers’ Union, is awarded the prize, others that Mo Yan is not a radical critique of the Chinese regime or an unreserved supporter of the dissidents.

Some articles even show that the methods of the Maoist… Lire la suite

Shen Congwen is one of the greatest Chinese writers of the pre-war period. Hence the importance of the recent release in France of “The Journey to Xiang and other short stories”(1) that illustrates the talent of the writer in various styles.

His life and career are totally atypical. His family is a blend of the dominant Han population and the Miao and Tujia minorities in the beautiful region of south-central China, Hunan. He enlisted in… Lire la suite

The release a few weeks ago of a book by Shen Congwen (which will be discussed later): “The journey to Xiang and other short stories” (1), has led me to read again his translated works and also to discover a remarkable book, “Four sisters of Hofei “by Annping Chin. She was born in Taiwan in 1950, a professor in the History Department at Yale University and the wife of Jonathan Spence, the well-known… Lire la suite

When we speak of Mo Yan we specially mention his novels, his “long” novels which sometimes  and wrongly scare away some readers. But he wrote more than a hundred short stories and many “short” novels and novellas. As he mentions in his foreword to “Shifu …”, a collection of short stories published in the United States: “the stature of a writer can only be determined by the thought revealed in a work, not by… Lire la suite

A thousand years long tradition had an unintended consequence in recent years, the development of a new literary genre: officialdom novels. This is why it is good news that Penguin China has published a few weeks ago “The civil servant notebook” by Wang Xiaofang, the great master of the genre, translated by Eric Abrahamsen, one of the founders of the well known site www.paper-republic.org  who lives in Beijing since 2001.

1 / The notebook of… Lire la suite

Han Dong is almost unknown in France, his books are not yet translated. This is not the case in the UK because of the efforts of a well-known translator Nicky Harman, who was kind enough to answer our many questions about this writer.

1 /The father, a writer, a family “sent to the countryside”:

Han Dong was born in Nanjing in 1961, he was the son of Han Jianguo (1930-1979), better known by the name… Lire la suite

Tan Twan Eng est un écrivain malaisien d’origine chinoise qui partage son temps entre l’île de Pénang où il est né et l’Afrique du Sud où il réside.

On a parlé, il y a quelques années, de son premier livre « A Gift of Rain », qui n’est malheureusement pas traduit en français. Ce livre avait été remarqué et figuré dans la première sélection du Booker prize, le Goncourt anglais. Son deuxième roman, très… Lire la suite

The end of the holiday period provides us with a major book from a Chinese novelist whom we had the pleasure to interview twice: Yan Lianke.

We remember for sure “Serve the People”, the “Dream of Ding Village”, “The Joy of living” published in 2009, and a beautiful text, “The Days, the months, the years”.

In “The Four Books”, he recalls the Great Leap Forward, the disastrous economic reforms imposed by Mao Zedong from 1958… Lire la suite

This is the nickname given to Anni Baobei by her”fans” for her novels of desolation and isolation. She is one of the most famous authors in modern China particularly among women and people under 35. “The Road of Others,” a collection of three newly-published (1) short stories is the translation of her first book “Goodbye Vivian” (2001). This short story, first published online secured her immediate fame.

1 – A literary star of the internet:… Lire la suite