More on the India-China Writers Dialogues

While I expect it will be some time until the participants of the India-China Writers Dialogues publish anything about the event–these writers want to be thorough and accurate to both reality and emotion–I did come across another press report, from Express India. It begins discussing the germ of the idea with Sharmistha Mohanty and Bei Dao, and moving on toward the following detail:

Since the beginning of the dialogue two years ago, the participants have been the same group of writers, and Mohanty believes this has been a very important aspect. “With the same group of writers meeting each time, we have become good friends and learnt a lot from each other,” she says. Besides the speakers for the panel discussion, the participants include Allan Sealy, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Adil Jussawalla, Vivek Narayanan and K Satchidanandan from India and Ge Fei, Xi Chuan, Zhai Yongming and Ouyang Jianghe from China.

These discussions are not limited to analysing writing styles and such. In the course of these two years, the participants have exchanged a great deal about their histories and cultures, too. “We talk about a variety of things,” says Mohanty. “For instance, what does tradition mean to us? How is it represented in our lives and works? Or how a writer wrestles with his past when he is writing. We discuss whether he rejects that long past or embraces it, and so on.”

ALTA Write-up

Russian translation magazine Apraksin Blues is hosting James Manteith‘s write-up on last November’s ALTA conference in Kansas City. Manteith writes:

The theme of country’s need for practitioners of the art of translation receives repeated emphasis. Despite America’s activeness on the world stage and the large number of immigrants within its borders, the populace remains ill-informed about the significance and value of other cultures. Literary translation represents one possible means of building respect for human cultural diversity outside the realm of political strategy.

Read the full article here.

China Rhyming on Path Light

My copy of Path Light just arrived in the mail yesterday, but it got too beat-up in the mail from Beijing to take a photo of (and this despite the bubble-wrap envelope!), so I won’t give you a shot of my translation of Xi Chuan’s “Looking at the Mural in the Ruicheng Temple of Eternal Joy” 观芮城永乐宫壁画 on the back cover.

Instead, I’ll post a link to Paul French‘s write-up on his China Rhyming blog.

Hindustan Times on India-China Writers Dialogues

The Hindustan Times has a report on the India-China Writers Dialogues, in which Xi Chuan is participating. I like the quick contextualization by Lydia Liu 刘禾:

This year, Indian writers such as I Allan Sealy, Adil Jussawalla and Malayalam poet K Satchidanandan are interacting with poets such as Han Shaogong, Xi Chuan and exiled dissident poet Bei Dao over three days in Mumbai, which began on Monday.

While the dialogues are closed-door events, the writers will give a public reading of their works on December 20 and will hold a shorter public dialogue on December 21.

“All we see in the media is hype about the economic rivalry between India and China, which is a limited view,” said Chinese critic and academician Lydia Liu. “Our cultures have thousands of years of association and many things in common, which writers are more sensitive to.”

Plume Issue 6

The new issue of Plume is here, with new poetry by Taiwanese superstar poet Hsia Yü translated by Steve Bradbury and Eduardo Chirinos translated by Gary Racz, as well as new work by Lydia Davis and International Poetry Nights Hong Kong 2011 participant Paul Muldoon.

Click here for my translation of Xi Chuan’s “The Ant’s Plunder” 蚂蚁劫, published in the last issue.

Almost Island

In honor of the upcoming China – India Writers Dialogues, I wanted to point out the journal Almost Island, whose editors Sharmistha Mohanty and Vivek Narayanan have been organizing the Dialogues.

See also the Almost Island publication of Mohanty’s essay on her experiences in China, “Mountains and Rivers“; Xi Chuan only gets the briefest of mentions (Bei Dao 北岛, Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河, and Li Tuo 李陀 get fuller discussions), but it’s a grand take on one writer’s considerations of China and its contrasts with India. Also the prose poem “Editorial Sutras,” which offers Mohanty’s impressions of the first Chinese – Indian Writers’ Dialogue, in 2009.