Posts featuring Yan Lianke

Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest news from Taiwan, Serbia, and El Salvador!

This week our writers bring you the latest literary news from Taiwan, Serbia, and El Salvador! In Taiwan, renowned writer Huang Chun-ming has brought out his latest novel and Chinese novelist Yan Lianke’s new essay compilation, Hers, has just been published. In Serbia, the annual Shakespeare festival, Šekspir Festival, has begun, and the Reading Balkans 2021 programme has launched in collaboration between Goga Publishing House, PEN Centre, and others. In El Salvador, a new blog run by Nelson Alonson, Una Verdad Sin Alfabeto, and publishing house Editorial Kalina have run online debates about Salvadoran writing and diaspora literature. Read on to find out more! 

Vivian Szu-Chin Chih, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan

The autumn equinox has brought drizzling rain to cool Taiwan down from the previous summer heat. During the final quarter of 2020, while hoping our global readers will all stay safe and healthy, several literary and movie events are taking place in Taiwan. With online screenings and live discussions being streamed, it might be the best time for an easy access to Taiwan’s recent cultural events, no mater where you are.

The renowned Taiwanese novelist and playwright, Huang Chun-ming’s (黃春明, 1935-) latest novel (Hsiu-Chin, the Girl who Always Smiles,《秀琴,這個愛笑的女孩》) was just published by Unitas Magazine’s publishing house. The story centers around a village girl from northeastern Taiwan entering the film industry accidentally in the 1960s, when Taiwanese-language films were at their peak. Huang’s novella was featured in our past issue, with the translator Howard Goldblatt’s moving account of his long-term friendship with Huang. At the same time, the Chinese novelist Yan Lianke’s (閻連科, 1958-) essay compilation, Hers (Tamen,《她們》), was recently published by Rye Field Publishing Company in Taiwan, unprecedentedly featuring stories of women the novelist encountered, inside and outside of his own family. Perhaps most unorthodox is the publication from Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ+) Hotline Association of their eight-year project that interviewed seventeen lesbians over fifty-five years old in Taiwan, to be published by Locus Publishing Company in October. This groundbreaking book on the life experiences of “lao-la” (「老拉」) in Taiwan, literally meaning old lesbians, is not only about their personal memories and struggles of being lesbians in the conservative Taiwanese society before the 1990s, but also a literary historical review of Taiwan’s gender equality and LGBTQ+ movements since the 1950s.

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Weekly Updates from the Front Lines of World Literature

Find out what's going on in the literary worlds of Japan and Italy in this week's update!

Our editors bring you the latest news in global literature from Italy and Japan this week as COVID-19 continues to make its presence known, the one-hundredth anniversary of Gianni Rodari’s birth is celebrated, and traditionally paper-dependant Japan starts investing in a virtual literary presence. Read on for the scoop!

Anna Aresi, Copy Editor, reporting from Italy:

As is well known to people in the industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has deeply impacted the publishing sector on many levels. In particular, the cancellation of most book fairs has deprived many of an important opportunity to meet fellow publishers, authors, translators and illustrators, to discover new releases to potentially translate, and set up those professional relationships that keep the industry alive. However, as we’ve seen over and over again in these months, the scope of the pandemic’s impact has often been countered with inventive, creative solutions to hold these same events in a different format.

One of the book fairs that had to be canceled was the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, one the most important events for children’s literature, taking place in Bologna, Italy, every spring. Originally scheduled to be postponed, it soon became clear that holding the BCBF in praesentia was not going to be possible, and the event happened virtually this past May.

One of the highlights of this year’s edition was the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of Gianni Rodari’s birth. Rodari is perhaps the single most important author of children’s books in Italy, having influenced and shaped generations of students, teachers, authors, and illustrators with his poems, short stories, books, and theoretical essays. The BCBF’s website hosts a virtual exhibition, Illustrators for Gianni Rodari, showcasing the works of many Italian artists who’ve illustrated Rodari’s books. In particular, Beatrice Alemagna, an award-winning Italian illustrator based in Paris, participates with her new illustrations for A sbagliare le storie (Telling Stories Wrong), in which an absent-minded grandfather keeps making mistakes when trying to tell the story of Red Riding Hood to her granddaughter, who has to continually correct him. As anyone who’s ever read to young children knows, consistency is key when telling them stories (over and over and . . . over again!), yet as the book shows, deviations from the norm might be as fun and rewarding as the canonical version. Alemagna’s beautiful new visual interpretation of this classic will hopefully be brought to other languages soon! READ MORE…

Why Living Is Not the Same as Life: Yan Lianke’s Village Memoir

Perhaps the best way to describe Yan’s writing is that of brutal honesty.

Three Brothers by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas, Grove Press, 2020

One of the most translated contemporary Chinese authors, Yan Lianke, has become quite the celebrity: he is featured in interviews in global media, invited to international literary festivals, and quoted on the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, despite this fame and international image, he remains fiercely loyal to his roots—the Chinese village where backbreaking hardship was the common lot until the 1990s. As he admits in his latest book to be translated into English: “I grew up in a household full of poverty and warmth.”

In this piece of non-fiction called 我与父辈 (first published in China in 2009) and rendered as Three Brothers in English through Carlos Rojas’ faithful and vivid translation, Yan pays tribute to the generation of his father, who survived an era of famine, political upheavals, social discrimination, and self-reliance in the 1960s and ’70s. By remaining faithful to their rock-solid values of decency, sacrifice, and stoic acceptance of life’s unfairness, this generation was able to provide better lives for their children. Yan, who belongs to the bridge generation, still remembers his early life of “吃苦” (chi ku, or literally, “eating bitterness”), whilst he has also directly experienced the benefits of China’s economic and social reforms that started in the 1980s but affected life in villages much later, around the late 1990s.

The book, which is subtitled Memories of My Family, describes the lives of three men: Yan’s father, Yan’s father’s second brother (called Second Uncle), and his cousin (called Fourth Uncle). All of them share similar characteristics: they are illiterate, extremely hard-working, and they all die as a result of the physical abuse that their bodies experienced in order to meet their most important obligations towards their families.

Perhaps the best way to describe Yan’s writing is that of brutal honesty. In this world of harsh masculinity—there are very few mentions of women in the book—life consists of the most important stations in life: giving birth, building houses, feeding and marrying off one’s many children (this was before China’s one-child policy started being implemented in 1979), providing education for the happy few, and ensuring a decent funeral. This is all accomplished through a philosophy that Yan describes as the difference between living in the village and in the city:

“ ‘Living’ suggests a process of enduring day after day, with each day being the same, and implies a kind of monotony, boredom, hopelessness, and idleness. ‘Life,’ on the other hand, conveys a sense of richness, of progress and the future. It has color and vitality and calls to mind the act of walking down a broad road illuminated by bright lights.”

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

Close-up on Brazil, Guatemala, and Hong Kong in this week's dispatches.

Between the pages of beloved books some sunlight gathers, as writers and readers from the various corners of our world gather to greet, honour, and celebrate one another. Crowds gather in search for literature in Rio de Janeiro, a Guatemalan favourite is shortlisted for a prestigious Neustadt International Award, and genre fiction takes the spotlight in Hong Kong. Travel with us between cobblestone and concrete, as our editors bring you the close-up view on global literary news.

Daniel Persia, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Brazil

One can hardly say it’s been winter here in the state of Rio de Janeiro, with the sun shining over the 17th edition of FLIP, the International Literary Festival of Paraty, from July 10 to 14. The festival—one of the world’s largest, and certainly Brazil’s most anxiously awaited—brought thousands of readers and writers to the cobblestone streets of Paraty in celebration of world literature. The main programming welcomed internationally acclaimed writers Grada Kilomba (Portugal, author of Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism), Ayòbámi Adébáyò (Nigeria, author of Stay with Me), and Kalaf Epalanga (Angola, author of Também os brancos sabem dançar), among others, with events in various languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, and Libras (Brazilian Sign Language). But the magic of this year’s FLIP certainly wasn’t confined to the mainstage: the “houses” of Paraty’s historic center were transformed into venues for book readings, signings, and endless conversation; a parallel “Flipinha” brought the literary festival alive for children of all ages; and the first-ever FLIP international poetry slam packed the main plaza for an unforgettable night, featuring poets from Cabo Verde, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, the US, and the UK. Anyone looking for a recap of the main events can head to FLIP’s YouTube page to check out the action!

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Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Our weekly roundup of literary news brings us to Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States.

We are back with the latest literary news from around the world! This week we hear about various happenings in Brazil, Indonesia, and the United States. 

Lara Norgaard, Editor-at-large, reporting from Brazil:

Brazil made international headlines when black feminist city councilperson Marielle Franco was assassinated in Rio de Janeiro on March 14. Renowned authors from around the world, including Chimamanda Adichie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, and Arundhati Roy, signed a petition demanding an investigation into the death of the activist and civic leader. One of Brazil’s most prominent black women writers, Conceição Evaristo, recited a poem in Marielle Franco’s honor during the days of protest and mourning that followed the murder.

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What’s New in Translation: December 2017

Looking for new books? Look no further!

2017 was a fantastic year for books, but there’s still so much more we want to share before we enter the New Year! This month, our team of editors review two new books from China and Japan—each of them special in their own way. Dive in! 

lianke

The Years, Months, Days by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas, Vintage (UK)

Reviewed by Dylan Suher, Contributing Editor

Released years after the publication of the original, translations benefit from historical hindsight. Although the two novellas contained within The Years, Months, Days (Grove Atlantic, December 2017) are the latest of Yan Lianke’s works to be translated into English, they were originally published in 1997 (The Years, Months, Days) and 2001 (Marrow, originally titled Balou Mountain Songs 耙耧天歌), just before the string of novels upon which Yan’s reputation now rests: Hard Like Water (2001), Lenin’s Kisses (2004), Dream of Ding Village (2005) and Four Books (2011). Read in retrospect, these novellas represent a critical point in the evolution of Yan’s aesthetic. In both, we can see Yan learning how to best use his preferred technique of primordial allegory, painted with a broad Fauvist brush. Carlos Rojas tends to smooth out and harmonize Yan’s expressive phrasing, but the credit (or blame) for the rough symbolist feel of a metaphor like time that “rushes past their interlocked gazes like a herd of horses” should all go to Yan.

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