Soft Burial follows the aftermath of the bloody land reform campaign of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The story opens with the mysterious, then-nameless protagonist pulled out of a river in an amnesiac state, near-to-death. As the story unfolds, the protective cocoon of amnesia that her subconscious wove around her begins to give way, revealing glimpses of her previous life and the unspeakable trauma that she suffered. First published in 2016, Soft Burial initially received critical acclaim but attacks from ultra-leftists featuring resurrected Cultural Revolution-era slogans — “Soft Burial is a terrible poisonous weed!” — followed. By 2017, the novel was banned and taken off of bookstore shelves. A strikingly salient examination of the toll of unearthing a long-burried past, the novel is an enjoyable read, too, due to its mellifluous translation.

Taiwan Travelogue is a novel disguised as a translation of a rediscovered Japanese text. Set in 1938, it follows Japanese novelist Aoyama Chizuko’s trip to Taiwan. Uninterested in banquets thrown by the colonial Japanese government, or its imperial agendas, Chizuko seeks out “the real Taiwan.” Accompanied by a young Taiwanese interpreter, Ō Chizuro (the two names share characters), Chizuko the novelist travels Taiwan — becoming infatuated with the island’s cuisine and her young translator in the process. But Ō Chizuru keeps her distance, what keeps the two apart? In a review published to China Books Review in February, “Found in Translation,” Michelle Kuo wrote, “Myriad questions, at root political, abound in the book.” The book deals with themes of same-sex love, colonialism, gender relations, and the meanings of food culture. Beyond politics, Taiwan Travelogue is a work of mouth-watering prose translated with exquisite delicacy.

Each issue of Granta magazine — founded in 1889 by Cambridge students, reinvented in 1979 to become London’s literary darling — is a book in its own right, and their latest codex collects some of the best new Chinese writing within red covers adorned by the obligatory yellow star. Some of China’s biggest names are inside, with translated short fiction by Yu Hua, Mo Yan and Yan Lianke. But there are also younger writers who have made a name for themselves, such as Zhang Yueran, and most excitingly a smattering of fiction from the “Dongbei Renaissance,” a new generation of writers from China’s northeast including Shang Xuetao and Ban Yu. These stories are expertly rendered by a roll call of the best translators in the business, alongside a smattering of poetry, an interview with One Way Street editor Wu Qi, and a report by Han Zhang from the Picun writers’ collective. ∎