Authorities in the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region have banned the sale of books by an ethnic Uyghur who served as the region’s first chairman, reports Radio Free Asia (Ban): Observers said the ban — part of an internal party order issued in April last year, but only recently learned of by RFA’s … Continue reading Censorship in Xinjiang: Books by former Chairman of the Region are Banned
非漂出版专讯: 2017.11 AfroLit4China Newsbriefs
A South African investigative journalist’s The President’s Keepers — documenting the ‘cancerous cabal’ that is reportedly bankrolling Jacob Zuma’s presidency — has become a best-seller even as the state moves to ban it. According to a report in Quartz Africa (Jacob Zuma’s corruption scandals are getting South Africans to read again), the State Security Agency … Continue reading 非漂出版专讯: 2017.11 AfroLit4China Newsbriefs
Mandela: “Dare Not Linger” Launched in English, as Weibo Bans Search in Chinese
The long awaited second volume of Nelson Mandela’s memoirs — Dare not Linger — has just been published. Left unfinished at his death, it has been completed by South African writer Mandla Langa, who reportedly worked from the partial draft, Mandela’s own notes and private archives. I am interested because I’d like to know if it … Continue reading Mandela: “Dare Not Linger” Launched in English, as Weibo Bans Search in Chinese
非漂 [Fēi Piāo] Quote of the Week: “An Expanded Capacity for Empathy”
. . . I began thinking one of literature’s tasks was to give voices to the voiceless, and to humanize people . . . so my first book of stories, The Refugees, worked exactly in that register, trying to humanize the Vietnamese people. But eventually I realized that this was a task that was doomed … Continue reading 非漂 [Fēi Piāo] Quote of the Week: “An Expanded Capacity for Empathy”
African Fiction: Exports to China on the Rise in 2017
Believe it or not, China imports more from Africa than just oil, diamonds and exotic parts of endangered species to maximize male, erh, performance (壮阳). Fiction writing, for instance. According to my newly updated mini-database of African literature in translation — 非洲文学 : 中文译本 — there are almost 100 contemporary African works (mainly novels) now … Continue reading African Fiction: Exports to China on the Rise in 2017
Last King of Kuqa: Uyghur Author Patigül Launches her Xinjiang Historical Novel
First enfeoffed by Qing Emperor Qianlong in 1758, this Uyghur dynasty in northeastern Xinjiang eventually boasted a line of eleven monarchs, popularly known as the “King of Kuqa” (库车王). Kuqa was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, but to … Continue reading Last King of Kuqa: Uyghur Author Patigül Launches her Xinjiang Historical Novel
Xinjiang Slogan Update: Pomegranate Seeds
As part of the global One Belt, One Road publicity campaign, China's media is publishing a bevy of articles introducing major oasis cities along the ancient Silk Road, including this one focusing on Xinjiang's Aksu (一带一路上的阿克苏: 新型全球化的城市样本). Here's a pic from the article, showing modern-day Aksu residents dancing.
Burn the books and bury the scholars! 焚書坑儒!
Geremie Barmé takes a look at the recent decision of Cambridge University Press to reinstate content deleted from the online version of its China Quarterly available in China: Chinese censorship has come a long way. During his rule in the second century B.C.E., the First Emperor 秦始皇 of a unified China, Ying Zheng 嬴政, famously quashed … Continue reading Burn the books and bury the scholars! 焚書坑儒!
非漂出版专讯: 2017.9 AfroLit4China Newsbriefs
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, speaking in Glossing Africa, questions the practice of briefly defining, footnoting, or otherwise clarifying the usage of indigenous terms in one’s fiction writing: There’s a part of me that just deeply resents the fact that there’re many parts of the world where the fiction that comes from there is read as anthropology rather … Continue reading 非漂出版专讯: 2017.9 AfroLit4China Newsbriefs
One Last Ride aboard Kenya’s “Lunatic Express”
Writes Thomas Bird from Kenya (Lunatic Express), where the China-built new Nairobi-to-Mombasa railway looks set to render the Victorian-era line redundant: “Belt and Road Cooperation for Common Promutual Benefit,” proclaims a large street sign suspended above Beijing’s ever-congested second ring road. China is investing massively in its 21st-century reimagining of the Silk Roads, even if the … Continue reading One Last Ride aboard Kenya’s “Lunatic Express”
Altaic Storytelling 