Originally published on Rue89 18/02/2010. “Socialism is geat” … a Chinese song! A song sung in companies on July 1st, the anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party, is also the title of the autobiography of Zhang Lijia, a worker in a missile factory in 1980-1990, later on a journalist. With a sister,…
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Originally published on Rue89 08/02/2010. Gao Xingjian, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, recently celebrated his 70th birthday. On this occasion, the University of London (SOAS) organised last January lectures and presentations of his books, films and theater. The author of “Soul Mountain” (Ed. de l’Aube, 1995) and “One’s man Bible” (Ed de l’Aube,…
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Originally published on Rue89 19/12/2009 Two Chinese detective writers have been presented in the past: He Jiahong, a professor at Beijing and Qiu Xiaolong, who teaches in the U.S.The talent of these writers should not make us forget that many Western writers, use China and the Chinese world as a backdrop or a partner…
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Originally published on Rue89 18/11/2009. The Neustadt Prize, the most prestigious literary prize after the Nobel, has been awarded for the first time to a Chinese writer, poet Duo Duo. We introduced Su Tong six months ago, he won the Man Asia Literary Prize for his novel “A Boat to Redemption”. The American “Nobel”:The Neustadt…
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Originally published on Rue89 31/10/2009. Sometimes banned and sometimes award-winning, Chinese novelist Yan Lianke is a matter of controversy in his own country. Again with his latest release “Lenin with Love” (a French translation of “The joy of living” ) his favorite, in which he plays around with the symbols of communism and consumer society,…
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Originally published on Rue89, 26/9/2009. Power and domination are one of the key topics of Bi Feiyu’s work, a well known writer in China and a growing reputation in the West. Two books in the U.S., five in France, “La Plaine”, his latest novel has been translated by Claude Payen and published by Philippe Picquier.…
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Originally published on Rue89; 09/19/2009 For the first time in Paris, the Cernuschi Museum, specializing in Asian art, displays a remarkable collection of Buddha statues, discovered in the Chinese province of Shandong, ten years ago. In 1996, in Qinzhou, 400 kilometers southeast of Beijing, a team of diggers discovered in a pit of sixty square…
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Originally published on Rue89-4/09/2009. Lao She, probably killed by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, is one of the greatest Chinese writers of the century and a man of great human qualities. Much of his work was available in French, and in particular his famous book about Beijing and the japanese “Four…
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Originally published on Rue89- 30/8/2009. A new novel by Chinese writer Mo Yan is an event: “The Harsh Law of Karma” (the french translation for ”Life and death are wearing me out”) is no exception. Through an animal reincarnation cascade, he leads the reader through the Chinese history of the last sixty years.…
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Originally published on Rue89, 14/8/2009. Jia Pingwa is one of the favorite writers of the Chinese public. He received a few months ago, the most prestigious literary award, the Mao Dun prize. But the news ,in the middle of the holiday period, is the publication of one of his novels, ” Fallen Capital ” banned…
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