Tag Archives: Ge Fei

Dialogue between Chinese and Indian Writers

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portraits

The Dialogue between Chinese and Indian Writers is organized by Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation and two prominent literary magazines—Today from China and Almost Island from India. The Dialogue will be held in Hong Kong on 13-14 October 2018 at the University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong.

Today and Almost Island have been convening contemporary Chinese and Indian writers, critics, musicians and artists for international cultural exchange since 2009. Their ongoing discussions cover a wide range of topics—literature, music and art, as well as culture, politics and history, in company with poetry recitals, fiction readings and music performances.

After the events in Hong Kong, they will further their conversations in Hangzhou, Mainland China.

Chinese Writers and Artists
Bei Dao 北島, Li Tuo 李陀, Ge Fei 格非, Ouyang Jianghe 歐陽江河, Lydia H. Liu 劉禾, Zhai Yongming 翟永明, Bao Kun 鮑昆, Han Shaogong 韓少功

Indian Writers and Artists
Ashis Nandy, Irwin Allan Sealy, K. Satchidanandan, Kabir Mohanty, Mohi Baha’ud-din Dagar, Sharmistha Mohanty, Vivek Narayanan

Date: 13-14 October 2018
Venue: University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
Address: 90 Bonham Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Organizers
Hong Kong Poetry Festival Foundation
Today《今天》
Almost Island

Co-organizers
University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong
Shuyu Coffee 舒羽咖啡

Xi Chuan, Yu Hua, Mo Yan, & others at Istanbul Book Fair

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China will be guest of honor at the International Istanbul Book Fair (Nov 2-10), with the theme being the Journey of Chinese literature from traditional to contemporary as illustrated by the “New Silk Road.”

Festivities are scheduled to include Xi Chuan 西川 and sixteen other Chinese authors, such as Ge Fei 葛菲, Jiang Nan 江南, Lao Ma 马俊杰, Li Jingze 李敬泽, Liu Zhenyun 刘震云,  Su tong 苏童,  Wang Gang 王刚, Yang Hongying 杨红樱, Yu Hua 余华, Zhang Wei 张炜,  Zhang Yueran 张悦然, and China Writers Association president, Tie Ning 铁凝.

For more, click the image above, or see here.

Hong Kong Book Fair Events

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The Hong Kong Book Fair begins tomorrow. You can find the complete list of events here in English and Chinese, but Bruce Humes has narrowed down the topics of interest, which I re-post here:

July 18

尋找華人推理小說的線索

Speaker: 紀蔚然 (Taiwanese writer on suspense novels)

人性‧文化‧制度

Speaker: 資中筠  (Zi Zhongyun, Chinese scholar and translator)

武俠小說與武俠電影 — 雷鋒還是雷人?

Speaker: 温瑞安 (Malaysian-born wuxia author Wen Jui on martial arts novels and cinema)

 

July 19

什麼是文學的經驗?

Speaker: 格非 (Novelist Ge Fei: What is ‘literary experience’? )

父親與民國

Speaker: 白先勇 (Pai Hsien-yung: My Father and the Republic of China)

 

July 20

烽火大地、永恆之旅

Speaker: 張翠容 (Cheung Chui-yung, HK travel writer)

內地與香港的文化衝突與融和   

Speaker: 馬立誠 (Ma Licheng: HK and the Mainland—Cultural Conflict and Synthesis)

 

July 21  

Talks on and Multilingual Reading of Leung Ping-kwan’s Poetry

Recitations by西野由希子, Sonia Au(待定), and 也斯, and talk by the always-controversial Professor Wolfgang Kubin

鄉音已改──小說家的世界觀 

Speaker: 黎紫書  (Lin Baolin, female writer born in Malaysia, on the distance between authors and their homelands)

女作家的香港煙霞

Speaker: 張曼娟 (Taiwanese novelist Chang Man Chuan)

為什麼總要問創作人靈感從哪來?

Speaker: 彭浩翔  (HK author and director: Why question the source of an artist’s inspiration?)

 

July 22

如今的文學與寫作

Speaker: 馮唐 (Feng Tang, Beijing novelist published in French and in Hong Kong (不二), on contemporary literature and writing)

生活與閱讀 

Speaker: 黃春明 (Huang Chunming, Taiwanese short story writer, and author of The Taste of Apples that lampooned the fascination of the island’s modern youth with their former occupiers, the Japanese)

愛是修養自己的旅程

Speaker: 素黑 (Hong Kong female author and columnist)

 

July 23

廢物•人渣•垃圾：城市書寫的邊緣視野

Speaker: 馬家輝 (Hong Kong journalist Ma Ka-fai on scum, rubbish and urban writing)

如秋水長天 

Speaker: 慕容雪村  (Murong Xuecun, controversial Chinese novelist, and author of Absurdities of China’s Censorship System

報導綠色

Speaker: 陳曉蕾 (Chen Xiaolei on “green” reportage)

我們這個時代的怕和愛：談中國電視劇

Speaker: 毛尖 (Mao Jian: Chinese TV Dramas—Fear and Love in our Era)

Pictures from the India-China Writers Dialogues

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Almost Island editor Sharmistha Mohanty sent me the following pictures from the India-China Writers Dialogues. In the first is, from the top left, Xi Chuan, Li Tuo 李陀, Lydia Liu 刘禾, Zhong Yurou 钟雨柔, Kabir Mohanty, Ge Fei 格非, with Sharmistha Mohanty, Bei Dao 北岛, Ashwini Bhat, and Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河 in the bottom row.

In the second shot, we have Xi Chuan with Ouyang Jianghe and Sharmistha Mohanty.

The pictures were taken by Samimitra Das.

 

More on the India-China Writers Dialogues

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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.”

India-China Writers Dialogues

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Xi Chuan will be traveling to Mumbai soon for the India-China Writers Dialogues. Here is a press release along with a schedule of speakers:

The online literature journal Almost Island, founded and edited by novelist Sharmistha Mohanty along with poet Vivek Narayanan, has begun a dialogue with mainland Chinese writers. The first such dialogue, led on the Chinese side by the great contemporary poet Bei Dao and the seminal journal Jintian (Today), was held in 2009 in New Delhi. This was possibly the first unofficial dialogue between Indian and Chinese writers in recent times. The second was held in China, in Beijing and Shanghai. This Mumbai meet is the third chapter of the dialogues. It brings together some of China’s and India’s leading writers. Ashis Nandy who has been part of these dialogues, has called it “historical”. He has said, “This is not a meeting between two countries, but an encounter between two civilisations.” The two evenings of readings will be rich with poets and novelists from both countries reading from their exceptional works.

Dec 19:
Zhai Yongming 翟永明
Allan Sealy
Xi Chuan 西川
Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Ge Fei 格非
K.Satchidanandan

Dec 20:
Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河
Sharmistha Mohanty
Adil Jussawalla
Han Shanogong 韩少功
Vivek Narayanan
Bei Dao 北岛

Path Light: New Chinese Writing

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Issue #1 of Path Light: New Chinese Writing, edited by Li Jingze 李敬泽, Alice Xin Liu, and Canaan Morse, is already out at the Beijing Bookworm and other venues (once it’s got an online presence / ordering page I’ll put up the link). Read this for the Xinhua English writeup, or take a look at Bruce Humes‘s list of some of the contents over at Ethnic ChinaLit:

Editorial Director Qiu Huadong (邱华栋) revealed some of the first issue’s contents:

  • Excerpts from the novels that won the 2011 Maodun Literary Prize, plus interviews with their authors.  He did not specify which novels would be excerpted, but the five winners were: On the Plateau, Zhang Wei (你在高原 , 张炜著) ;  Skywalker, Liu Xinglong (天行者, 刘醒龙著); Massage, Bi Feiyu (推拿, 毕飞宇著); Frogs, Mo Yan (蛙, 莫言著) ; and One Sentence Worth Thousands, Liu Zhenyun ( 一句顶一万句, 刘震云著) See Rewarding Writer-Officials? for insight into the controversy surrounding this year’s Maodun Prize.
  • Short stories by authors born in the 1970s and 1980s, including Jiang Yitan (蒋一谈), Qi Ge (七格) and Di’an (笛安).
  • Poems by Xi Chuan (西川), Lei Pingyang (雷平阳) and others
  • Short stories by other writers including Li Er (李洱)
  • Introductions to new books such as Ge Fei’s Spring in Jiangnan (春尽江南, 格非著), Wang Anyi’s Tiānxiāng (天香, 王安忆著), Jia Pingwa’s Old Kiln (古炉, 贾平凹著), and Fang Fang’s Wuchang City (武昌城, 方方著)

The Xi Chuan pieces they’ve published are “Looking at the Mural in the Ruicheng Temple of Eternal Joy” 观芮城永乐宫壁画, “Ill Fortune H 00325” 厄运 H 00325, “Dragon” 龙, and “The Body and History” 体相与历史.