Still More Mo Yan

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At ChinaFile Shelley Wing Chan discusses her enthusiasm over Mo Yan, which led to her book A Subversive Voice in China: The Fictional World of Mo Yan.

Rebecca Liao calls Mo Yan “Passionately Individual, Likely to Remain Friendless,” while Xiaolu Guo 郭小櫓 answers the question, “Are all Chinese novelists ‘state writers’?”

In “A New Normal for Chinese Literature?” Sheila Melvin wonders if China and Chinese literature can “rise above politics and [mark] the beginning of a new “normal” in which writers are free to write and readers free to read.”

In a piece called “Mo Yan’s Middle Finger,” translator A E Clark reads the stories Mo Yan tells in his Nobel lecture and points out what he sees as his self-serving defense against criticism.

My Chinese Books looks at Mo Yan’s short stories, and at Three Percent Chad Post gives an enthusiastic review of Mo Yan’s newest publication in English, Pow!

RC Davis-Undiano, executive director of World Literature Today, was interviewed for a Beijing broadcast on Chinese literature overseas and Mo Yan.

In “Between The Red Lines: An American Writer in China,” Amelia Gray says, “It’s not just Mo Yan who has to choose his words carefully. All artists in authoritarian regimes face similar stakes, and it’s time that we as an international community of artists start paying attention to those artists and those stakes.” But she spends ten days in China unable to know more than “the names of Ha Jin and Ba Jin,” as “interacting knowledgably with early- and mid-career Chinese writers is difficult, because their work is typically not translated into English.”

And in response to Charles Laughlin’s “What Mo Yan’s Detractors Get Wrong” (to which I linked in the last roundup), Perry Link in “Politics and the Chinese Language” discusses “two important questions: 1) To what extent, if any, are Mo Yan and other contemporary Chinese writers trapped in a Maoist language that constricts their expression, and perhaps their vision as well? and 2) Can writers who live under political censorship nevertheless find ways to write to write well?”

 

DJS Translation Award for 2012

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from Poetry East West 诗东西:

DJS Translation Award for 2012

News Release December 26, 2012

DJS Translation Award for 2012 will be given to the following individuals whose new translations of Chinese poetry have formed a significant part of “New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry 1990-2012” (to be published by Tupelo Press in 2013):

Nick Admussen (for translation of Ya Shi)

Christopher Lupke (for translation of Xiao Kaiyu)

Jonathan Stalling (for translation of Zheng Xiaoqiong)

Katie Farris (for co-translation of Duo Duo, Liao Yiwu, Zhang Shuguang, Feng Yan, and Hu Xudong)

Afaa Weaver (for co-translation of Sun Wenbo and Jiang Hao)

Tony Barnstone (for co-translation of Jiang Tao, Hu Xudong and Li Shumin)

Kerry Shawn Keys (for co-translation of Song Lin)

Eleanor Goodman (for co-translation of Bai Hua)

Jennifer Kronovet (for co-translation of Wang Xiaoni and Lan Lan)

Elizabeth Reitzell (for co-translation of Sun Wenbo)

Cody Reese (for co-translation of Hu Xudong)

The above translators will share the DJS Translation Award for 2012.

 

The 2011 DJS Translation Award recipient was Neil Aitken for his co-translations of poetry by Chinese poets Lü De’an, Sun Wenbo, Jiang Tao, Qin Xiaoyu, Yang Xiaobin, Zhang Zhihao, Liu Jiemin, Yu Xiang, Lü Yue, and Jiang Li.

DJS Translation Award was established by DJS Art Foundation, a private entity, to promote literary exchange between China and other countries and to encourage quality translation of poetry. DJS has supported several projects such as the multi-lingual journal Poetry East West. For more information, please visit the DJS pages on the website of Poetry East West: http://poetryeastwest.com/djs-translation-award/

 

Notes on the Mosquito on WLT’s 75 Notable Translations 2012

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World Literature Today has posted its list of seventy-five notable translations for 2012, and it features my translation of Xi Chuan’s Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems, along with only three other books by East Asian writers.

The list also includes Jeffrey Yang’s translation of June Fourth Elegies 念念六四 by Liu Xiaobo 刘晓波, as well as Eliot Weinberger’s new Poems of Octavio Paz, also published by New Directions.

See the entire list here.

CFP: CAAP convention on American poetry & poetics in Wuhan, China

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Call for Papers

The 2nd Convention of Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics & International Symposium on Modern and Contemporary Literatures in English
Wuhan, China
June 8-9, 2013

In September 2011, the 1st Convention of Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP) took place successfully, attended by about 300 scholars and poets from the world. In order to further promote international exchange and scholarly prosperity, the University of Pennsylvania-based CAAP will collaborate with the School of Foreign Languages and School of Humanities of Central China Normal University, Foreign Literature Studies, and Forum for World Literature Studies in hosting “The 2nd CAAP Convention and International Symposium on Modern and Contemporary Literatures in English” (June 8-9, 2013) in Wuhan, China. Scholars and authors all over the world are welcome.

Topics of the conference are:
1. Modern and Contemporary Literary Movements and Ethnic Literature;
2. Ethical Criticism of Modern and Contemporary Literature;
3. Ethnic Perspectives on Modern and Contemporary Literature;
4. Avant garde Poetic Practice and Theory in the Contemporary Context;
5. The Politics of Poetic Form;
6. Translation, Diffusion and Teaching of Modern and Contemporary Literature.

 The abstract of [or and] the conference paper is expected to be submitted by March 5, 2013 to the conference organizing committee at caapconvention@gmail.com. The official invitation will be sent by mail or e-mail within one week after the reception of the above-mentioned document[s].

 For more information, please contact Prof. Lianggong Luo and Ms Qin Zhang at
Address: School of Foreign Languages, Central China Normal University
152 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, Hubei 430079, China
E-mail: caapconvention@gmail.com
Phone: 86-138-8606 7048；86-27-6786 5655

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