. . . il existait par exemple de très nombreux lieux sacrés qui, d’un village à l’autre et même au fin fond des montagnes, constituaient une sorte de réseau spirituel. Des lieux importants pour les femmes qui, dans cette société patriarcale, pouvaient s’y retrouver – pour demander un enfant, résoudre un conflit, etc. J’ai voulu … Continue reading Uyghur Cineast Mukaddis Mijit on her new film, “Nikah”
Bilingual author and cineast Pema Tseden passed away on May 8, 2023. Writes his French translator Brigitte Duzan: C’était une rumeur sourde, venant de l’autre bout de la terre, portée par le vent, dans le petit matin gris, Pema est mort, Pema est mort… Incrédules, nous n’arrivions pas à y croire et nous avions tort. … Continue reading La littérature tibétaine comme le cinéma est en deuil
Incarceration of Xinjiang's Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples expanded massively beginning in 2017, but the campaign targeting intellectuals specifically dates back to mid-2014. At the end of Xi Jinping's April visit to Xinjiang, an explosion at the Urumqi train station killed three people and injured nearly 80 others, according to the BBC. Just two months … Continue reading China’s Culture Wars: Opening Salvo in Crackdown on Uyghur Intellectuals
Tupelo Quarterly has just published an excerpt from Sheng Keyi's dystopian novel, The Metaphor Detox Center (锦灰, 盛可以 著), entitled The Love Experiment: She became acquainted with a few fellow patients at the centre. Like them, she’d heard of shelters, treatment centres for drug addiction, mental health clinics and so on, but only once she … Continue reading The Metaphor Detox Center: Excerpt from Sheng Keyi’s 锦灰
Political theorists in the early 20th century coined the term “state of exception” for an authoritarian state’s use of crises to normalize extraordinary extralegal measures — and keep them in effect indefinitely. In China, Mr. Xi first put Xinjiang in a state of exception, and more recently has used Covid-19 as justification to do the … Continue reading Quote of the Week: Xi Jinping’s Eternal “State of exception”
In Xinjiang Has Produced Its James Joyce, Ed Park reviews the first contemporary Uyghur-language novel to appear in English translation, by an author --- Perhat Tursun (پەرھات تۇرسۇن) --- now languishing in the Xinjiang Gulag: If his [the protagonist's] rural Uyghur upbringing was harsh, his life as a Uyghur man in Ürümchi can be downright brutal. Byler’s … Continue reading “Backstreets,” the Novel: The Brutal Life of a Uyghur Man in Xinjiang’s Ürümchi
African Writing in Chinese Translation 107 Authors 273 Translated Works （包含大陆、港台等版本） (PRC, Hong Kong and Taiwan editions) This “mini” database is an ongoing project and is for reference only. To date, most of the original texts are in colonial languages such as English, French or Portuguese. Although some were originally penned in Arabic (e.g., … Continue reading 非洲文学：中文译本 African Writing in Chinese Translation
Bruce Humes worked in China for more than three decades as an export management trainer, launching B2B magazines for Chinese managers, and translating fiction. He left the mainland in 2015 and has since lived in Taiwan, Malaysia, Tanzania, and Turkey, but continues to write about the Sinosphere. The following interview was conducted in English and … Continue reading 「我不是唯一被视为 『他者』 的人」—— 对话 Bruce Humes
Three important publications are launching this month, offering insight into what it means to be Uyghur today: On Sep 15, Editions Jentayu (info@editions-jentayu.fr) will launch Littérature Ouïghour, a special issue dedicated to contemporary Uyghur writing in French translation. Authors include Memtimin Hoshur and his visionary short story on problematic mustaches; Perhat Tursun; Helide Isra'il; Gülnisa Erdal; … Continue reading The Uyghur Experience: Connecting the Dots in September 2022
Shanghai Translation Publishing (上海译文出版社) has begun marketing its Chinese renditions of five novels by Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah: 《天堂》(Paradise),《来世》(After Lives),《赞美沉默》(Admiring Silence),《最后的礼物》(The Last Gift) and《海边》(By the Sea). They will eventually be available in e-book format as well. As noted in Tales of Exile and Migration, in 2021 this publisher acquired the rights to publish translations — … Continue reading Shanghai Translation Launches 5 Novels by Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah
Bruce Humes 