Articles in the Short stories Category

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

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

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

Qiu Xiaolong, whom I met recently, noted that one speaks mainly of his detective novels. This mentioned without acrimony, as he is a model of courtesy, but I have to take this into account: for Qiu Xiaolong, the main thing is poetry!

Poetry, from theTang to TS Eliot and … Qiu Xiaolong.

His research for a thesis on the Anglo-American poet TS Eliot, led him to St. Louis (Missouri) with a grant from the Ford… Lire la suite

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

The publisher Bleu de Chine Gallimard has published several books of good quality on literature of the 1930s including an excellent collection of texts and drawings by Feng Zikai (1).

With the short stories by Shi Zhecun (2), published a few months ago, in a translation by Marie Laureillard and Gilles Cabrero, you can discover an author somewhat forgotten and whom we knew only with two short stories translated into the excellent book “The Shanghai… Lire la suite

These last months, Mo Yan has been on the top of the news: the French publication of “Frogs” (1) followed a few days later by the award to this novel of the Mao Dun Prize (shared with four other writers) but a prize of 50,000 euros each.

Recently was published a collection of short stories with the evocative title: “The beauty riding a donkey on Chang’an Avenue” (2) with a book cover supposed to catch… Lire la suite

Su Tong is one of the writers shortlisted for the prestigious “Man Booker International” prize. A short book which has just been published “On a Bicycle” (1) is a good example of a talent that you may also enjoy in a few months when will be published in French a good novel (2) already translated into English and award-winning in Asia.

A dream, the “Booker International” prize :

The prize, endowed by… Lire la suite

Not much is said at this moment about the Sino-American writer Ha Jin, in my view a major writer; his book ” War Trash ” is one of the most remarkable novels I’ve read in recent years. Good news, his latest novel, “A Free Life”, his first text on Chinese migrants in the United States, will be translated from English by Editions du Seuil In Paris, next september; we’ll come back on this.

“A… Lire la suite