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…
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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…
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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…
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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”.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Qiu Xiaolong, a Shanghai writer who emigrated to the USA, has published during many years detective novels which are enthralling and detailed analysis of the social and political developments in modern China. During his recent visit to Paris, we were able to ask a few questions concerning his latest book, “Cyber China”. In this novel,…
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You can visit until June 25, at the Guimet Museum in Paris, a beautiful exhibition on Chinese scholars, “scholar rocks” and the objects which make up their “treasures”. Unlike in the West, stones more than plants play a vital role in Chinese gardens. The rugged and monumental rocks, as from the seventh century, will begin…
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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 /…
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