The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast
Angus Stewart
Recent Episodes
‘I wrote the asinine words ‘liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart.’
In the ninety ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we’re taking a lengthy holiday with Mo Yan in The Republic of Wine, so get your visa stamped and your baijiu in hand. This time there are two discussions. First, sober, with returnees Dylan Levi King and Michelle Deeter. Then, drunk with DLK and poet/translator Martin Winter. Listen all the way through, comrade, to hear two of us curse then proclaim our love for a prominent figure in the field. This is the penultimate episode; the time for tomfoolery is almost over.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- Tongueless by Lau Yee-wa
- Helen Wang interviews Sabina Knight
- Mourning a Breast by Xi Xi
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(酒量 – jiǔliàng – capacity for liquor)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The Diary of a Madman - Lu Xun
- Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh // (plus her stories set in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Jiangsu)
- UK's Eat Out to Help Out & Japanese govt’s Sake Viva! drive
- Cannibalism in Joyce and Mo Yan
- Postsocialism and Cultural Politics
I supposed every last one of this country’s 1.3 billion inhabitants all had their own obsessions with the giant germ cell.
In the ninety eighth episode of the Translated Chinese fiction podcast I am joined by two fine fellows, Shi Yifeng and contributing translator Carson Ramsdell. All a-puff with imperial gusto, we leaf through The Book of Beijing to discuss three of the stories collected within: Han Song’s Reunion ( 北京西站，春节之前 - běijīng xī zhàn, chūnjié zhīqián - tr. Ramsdell 先生), Xu Kun’s Dogshit Football (狗日的足球 - gǒurì de zúqiú), and Mr Shi’s own Is Mr Zhang Home? (张先生在家么 - zhāng xiānshēng zàijiā me). Prepare to shiver, to snicker, and to squeal – but not necessarily in that order.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- My Cat Hates Me bags gold graphic novel prize in the 2023 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards
- TaiwanPlus News speaks to Jenna Tang about First Love Paradise
- Chengdu Worldcon happened – seems to have gone well!
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(复杂 – fùzá – complexity)
(壮美 – zhuàngměi – magnificent)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- Parallel episode on Mu Ming’s Express to Beijing West Railway Station
- Shanghai’s strange ‘foreign towns’
- Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie
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// Handy TrChFic Links //
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/angus-stewart1/message‘Starting to write a suicide note would be too melodramatic. If she wrote it, it would only contain one line: This love makes me so uncomfortable.’
In the ninety seventh episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we are passing the gates of Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise (房思琪的初戀樂園- fáng sī qí de chūliàn lèyuán), an all-too-real #MeToo novel by the late Lin Yi-han, centred around the titular girl and the cram school teacher who abused her all through her teens. Reflecting with me on the troubling nature of the text and the dark realities it holds a mirror to is its translator, Jenna Tang.
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// NEWS ITEMS //
- A new fiendish rival? The China Books Review launches
- Cambria Press publishes translation Liu Na’ou’s Urban Scenes
- Avant garde champion Can Xue doesn’t get the Nobel Lit Prize… this time
- READ: Heart by Shuang Xuetao (tr. Jeremy Tiang)
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// WORD OF THE DAY //
(樂園 – lèyuán – paradise)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
- The pedophile art teacher from Angus’ secondary school
- Black Box by Siori Oto
- The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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// Handy TrChFic Links //
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/angus-stewart1/message‘the man spun instinctively to face them, both hands covering his chest, looking almost sorrowful as blood glazed his fingers’
In the ninety sixth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are entering into dialogue with bioscientist-turned-historical-fictioneer Chen Yao-chang and translator Chen Tung-jung to learn how they cultivated Puppet Flower: A Novel of 1867 Formosa (傀儡花 - kuǐlěi huā), to see if we can arrive at a peaceful settlement between the native people of southern Taiwan, their absentee Qing administrators, and the diverse Western powers creeping ever closer. Oh, and the other people on the island. You know – the Hakka, the Hokkien, the Han… have you lost count yet?
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// NEWS ITEMS //
Sinoist Books is hitting the road for a UK tour
The Book of Beijing is coming to Manchester
The Little Red Podcast does a Chinese sci-fi episode
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// WORDs OF THE DAY //
(真 – zhēn – truth)
(Formosa – 福尔摩沙 – Portuguese for ‘beautiful’)
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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //
Chen Yao-chang’s place in stem cell history
The efforts of Le Gendre and other westerners to map southern Taiwan
The TV adaptation: Seqalu: Formosa 1867
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// Handy TrChFic Links //
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/angus-stewart1/message