Liu Zhenyun in Paris.

Liu Zhenyun 5Liu Zhenyun is one of the Chinese writers best known for his literary successes and the famous films of his friend Feng Xiaogang. Liu Zhenyun, on a European tour, just spent a few days in Paris to present films and novels as he had already done in October 2013.

 

A family tour :

The program began with a presentation at the Confucius Institute of the University of Paris Diderot of ” A word is Lire la suite

Rao Pingru illustrates a love of sixty years.

Rao Pingru 11Rao Pingru is 96 years old, he has been the guest of honor of the Festival of comic strips which is held these days in Angouleme, in France. His first book, which combines text and drawings, has been translated into French and this week into English by Nicky Harman and yet he does not consider himself a writer or an artist.

 

He was older than 90 years when he wrote this first book:

 … Lire la suite

Romain Rolland, forgotten in France, praised in China.

romain-rollandWhat do you think of “Jean Christophe”? To reply that I had not read it resulted in a reaction of surprise from Chinese friends … I was all the less forgivable because I live in Paris around the Luxembourg Garden, near the 162 Boulevard du Montparnasse, where Romain Rolland stayed and wrote “Jean Christophe”.

 

Romain Rolland, a writer without borders:

 

He was a writer, an intellectual of a stature and influence which we … Lire la suite

Xue Yiwei, a writer famous in China and almost unknown in Montreal.

xue-yiwei-4Two short stories collections, “War Stories” and “Shenzheners” by Xue Yiwei , a celebrated writer in China who lives in Montreal for almost fifteen years, are now translated into English.

 

– From Shenzhen to Montreal:

 

He grew up in Changsha, Hunan, where he worked for a local government body after studying computer science in Beijing. In 1989, at 25, he published his first novel “Desertion“, an essentially … 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

Han Dong, an independent writer in Nanjing.

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, a Malaysian writer for a British literary prize ?

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 réussi, … Lire la suite

Yan Lianke and “The Four books”, a novel on totalitarian madness.

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

Anni Baobei: a flower in the dark.

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

Shirley Geok-Lin Lim: from Malaysia to California.

Shirley Geok-Lin Lim is a writer, poet and academic, well known in the U.S., ignored in France, where not even a line is translated. Yet she is a leading figure and a talented writer who can be discovered by reading her memoirs, probably her best novel “Among the white moon faces” (1). /

1 / Malacca, the sleepy hollow:

 

Born in Malacca in 1944, a beautiful city, 150 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur, … Lire la suite

Reading Chinese novels in the West.

The Macau Ricci Institute asked me a few months ago to prepare an article on contemporary Chinese literature and the West. This text has been published in English and Chinese in the April issue of the journal “Chinese Cross Currents.” This magazine has posted the article which was written after a dozen interviews with editors and translators in England, France and the United States.

We will give a quick summary and hope for exchange of … Lire la suite

Who translates and publishes Chinese literature in French?

The site http://paper-republic.org/ plays an important role: it publicizes Chinese literature abroad and encourages publishers to develop their catalog. The site was founded by a group of well known English speaking translators, some of them living in China.

1 / “Paper-Republic” and Chinese literature in French:

 

The site, managed in recent months by Helen Wang, has been very active with the book fair in London where China was the guest of honor. Helen Wang … Lire la suite

Yang Xianhui and Wang Bing: let survivors of labour camps talk and testify.

Two films by Wang Bing are just released: “Fengming, chronicle of a Chinese woman,” an amazing documentary film, three hours long, where a long time Communist recounts her life and the death of her husband in a camp, in a casual and controlled way, but where one can feel love and humanity. “The Ditch” is a film that deals with a camp for “reeducation through labor” and the famine of 1960. Both films are directly … Lire la suite