Quote of the Week: Yan Lianke Nomination for the Newman Prize

Throughout his career, Yan Lianke has held fast to the notion of the writer as a voice of social or moral conscience, a notion that in China under Xi Jinping appears at once quaint and deeply subversive. (Excerpted from Kirk Denton's nomination of Chinese author Yan Lianke (阎连科) for the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature)

Writing Fiction: “A Degree of Possession”

Whether or how much a book draws from real life isn’t strictly quantifiable . . . Part of this mystery is due to the chaotic consciousness native to the novel-writing process, which requires a degree of possession . . . To dig a book out of the ground can be backbreaking, hand-tearing work; you need to forget what you … Continue reading Writing Fiction: “A Degree of Possession” →

At Last, A Native American to Head US Dep’t of the Interior

The New York Times reports: WASHINGTON — Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico made history on Monday when the Senate confirmed her as President Biden’s secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency. Ms. Haaland in 2018 became one of the first two Native American women elected to … Continue reading At Last, A Native American to Head US Dep’t of the Interior →

“Let a thousand translations bloom”

Mridula Nath Chakraborty on the controversy arising from the resignation of Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translator: Translators ferry across the meaning, materiality, metaphysics and all the magic that may be unknown in the mediums and conventions of their own tongue. The pull of the strange, the foreign, and the alien are necessary for acts of translation. It … Continue reading “Let a thousand translations bloom” →

Quote of the Week: A Shipwrecked Mother Tongue

For me, linguistic displacement is a mark of origin. When I was five years old, I learned French at the Alliance Française in Santiago; at seven years old, when we moved to California, I learned English and forgot my French. From that moment forward, I have remained sandwiched between Spanish and English, feeling comfortable to a … Continue reading Quote of the Week: A Shipwrecked Mother Tongue →

Crime & Punishment for Online Speech in the People’s Paradise —— 中国文字狱事件

The New York Times reports: In China, don’t question the heroes. 在中国，不要怀疑英雄。 At least seven people over the past week have been threatened, detained or arrested after casting doubt over the government’s account of the deaths of Chinese soldiers during a clash last year with Indian troops. Three of them are being detained for between seven and … Continue reading Crime & Punishment for Online Speech in the People’s Paradise —— 中国文字狱事件 →

Quote of the Week: China’s HK in the Era of the New Security Law

“ You cannot say, ‘I’m patriotic but I don’t respect the fact that it is the Chinese Communist Party which leads the country'. ” (Erick Tsang, Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs)

Book Review of “The War on the Uyghurs”: How a People Became “Terrified”

An excerpt from Darren Byler’s review of Sean Roberts’ The War on the Uyghurs: Prior to the US declaration of the Global War on Terror, Uyghurs were described occasionally as “counterrevolutionaries” or as “separatists”, but never as terrorists. Working in concert with Chinese state security in a Beijing-based investigation, in the early 2000s US intelligence officials took up … Continue reading Book Review of “The War on the Uyghurs”: How a People Became “Terrified” →

“Sidik Golden MobOff”: Li Bai was Uyghur

An Excerpt from Sidik Golden MobOff by Alat Asem 斯迪克金子关机阿拉提·阿斯木著 First published in Peregrine, Issue 14, June 2013 Translated by Bruce Humes In our community, the only person who excelled at translating Uyghur into Chinese was Big Brother Sidik, and this was the inexhaustible source of his arrogance and aloofness. His colleagues and fellow students … Continue reading “Sidik Golden MobOff”: Li Bai was Uyghur →