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 2012 issue of the journal “Chinese Cross Currents”. The editor of this magazine has been kind enough to post on the internet the full content of this article.

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 on the internet more than one third of the article which was written after a dozen interviews with editors and translators in England, France and the United States.… Lire la suite

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… Lire la suite

China is now the No. 1 worldwide for both the number of internet users and for mobile phones. Such an environment supported an extremely rapid development of literature on the internet. Creative writing, the role of publishers, the relationship between literature and other media, all that is doomed to change …

1 – China on the fast track:

China, with its 460 million Internet users has passed the United States; these… Lire la suite

Anne Sastourné is a publisher with the “Éditions du Seuil”, responsible for the Far East; she was kind enough to answer our questions.

Can one speak of an editorial policy?

At the Seuil, what matters is a literary quality and a certain intellectual level, it’s an opening line.

This sector Far East was built by my predecessor, Vincent Bardet, and I took over there about ten years ago. I have three… Lire la suite

If you visit the Expo, do not rely on travel agencies if you want to discover lesser-known aspects of Shanghai that the few “must see”. During the Olympics in Beijing, I had suggested in Rue89, “literary walks” that received positive reactions. Unable to go to Shanghai this year, I still found some interesting information.

1 – The residence of pre-war celebrities:

The China Daily “(2010-07/02), offers eight ideas of visits of the… Lire la suite

The “Salon du Livre” in Paris is thirty years old, the Hong Kong Book Fair celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2009. Paris recorded 190,000 visitors and 920,000 in Hong Kong for a city of seven million inhabitants.

In Hong Kong, the Book Fair, the largest in Asia, is a popular event, a landmark event which attracts some 90,000 tourists (1). Visitors come mainly for buying books, novels and literature for more than 80% ( of… Lire la suite

Twenty million young Chinese were sent to the countryside to be re-educated during the Cultural Revolution. This episode, not often mentioned in France, is of major importance for the understanding of history and Chinese literature. ‘Lost Generation’,  sending educated youth to rural China (1968-1980) was published in 2004 by Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and is the reference book on the subject.

 Michel Bonnin started the first interviews in Hong… Lire la suite

Originally published on Rue89 07/13/2010

As published last year, here again is a choice of ten chinese novels for your summer, recently published (in France ) as paperbacks and easy to find.The choice of novels of more than 300 pages has been limited to two books, as some readers shy away.

Only writers and books which came under review last year have been selected.

• Available also in English:

-         Diane Wei… Lire la suite