He Jiahong’s crime novels, hopefully new titles…

He Jiahong is a professor of Criminal Law at Renmin University in Beijing, a well known professor but also an author of excellent detective novels. I had the chance to meet him in Beijing in May 2008 and enjoyed his personality.

During this interview, he mentioned that the rights of “Blood Crime” had been bought by Penguin as already four of his novels had been published in France by Editions de l’Aube.

Endless delays:Lire la suite

Lao She in London, a novelist and the “yellow peril”.

Lao She (1899-1966) is one of my favorite writers, so I have not waited too long to read “Lao She in London” (1) by Anne Witchard, lecturer at the English Department of Westminster University. A good book that teaches little about Lao She, but a lot about the influence of China on the London avant-garde of the time and also the obsession of the “yellow peril.”

London, an important step:

Lao She was born in … Lire la suite

“Crossings” by Chuang Hua, a must read book.

“Crossings” (1) published in 1968 has been completely ignored. Released again in 1986 with an afterword by the scholar Amy Ling, this book, partly autobiographical, was considered an essential step in the development of Sino-American literature and as a forerunner to the famous work by Maxine Hong Kingston “The woman warrior “(1975).

This is the only book ever written by Stella Yang Copley (1931-2000) under the name of Chuang Hua. Born in China, her family … Lire la suite

In Tibet, the bloody conflicts between Christ and Buddha.

A book and an exhibition centered on the bloody conflict between Christ and Buddha at the border of China Yunnan and Tibet. Two simultaneous but unrelated events.The release last April of a novel by Fan Wen, “A Land of Milk and Honey” and a current exhibition, “Missions of the roof of the world”, with the Foreign Missions in Paris. Fan Wen speaks only Chinese and the Fathers of the Foreign Missions have not read his … Lire la suite

Qiu Xiaolong: from Inspector Chen to short stories.

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

Chi Zijian, short stories for three Lu Xun awards.

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

Tan Twan Eng, a Malaysian writer for a British literary prize ? (…)

This article has been posted on the 17th 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 14th 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 where … Lire la suite

Chi Zijian, the death of shamans and reindeer herders.

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 river Chika to … Lire la suite

After the controversy over the Nobel and Mo Yan, why not read his books?

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, a writer once banned in China and Taiwan.

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

Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe, married for over fifty years…

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 academic.

Annping … Lire la suite

Mo Yan: short stories by a Nobel prize.

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 its … Lire la suite

In China, officialdom novels: more than a hundred titles per year.

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