Yan Geling: Crossing the Red Line
The acclaimed novelist and screenwriter built an audience in China for her powerful historical narratives. Then, somewhere, she crossed a line. What is it like...
Translated Chinese Literature: Short Fiction
Short stories are all the rage in Chinese, but get short shrift in the West. We picked five recent translated collections, from riveting horror tales...
Found in Translation
An award-winning novel set in Japanese-occupied Taiwan explores the relationship between colonizer and subaltern, translator and translated — and how some distances can’t be closed.
Ep. 17: Lau Yee-Wa on Hong Kong Fiction
We talked to the author of "Tongueless" about how Cantonese is disappearing from Hong Kong schools, and what literature can do to raise awareness.
The Thrilling Truth
A new thriller set in 1930s Shanghai includes just enough historical detail to be believable. But is history at risk of being overtaken by fiction?
Don’t Write Off the Mao Dun Literature Prize
Never mind the Booker, Pulitzer and National Book Award — China’s Mao Dun Prize, despite its behind-the-times reputation, can shift the reading habits of a...
Ep. 11: Beijing in Short Fiction
China’s capital is so difficult to capture that sometimes only fiction can suffice. The editor of a new short story collection explains how a literary...
The Habit of Hoping
In the wake of Tiananmen, can a mother’s love, or a wife’s concern, transcend national trauma?
What China’s Reading: Short Stories
Chinese literature has a long-standing, often fantastical tradition of the short story form. Five modern collections, from both the mainland and Taiwan, show that legacy...
Translated Chinese Literature: Trauma Fiction
Chinese writers have long used fiction to process trauma, both historical and personal. In these five newly translated titles, the trend continues in modern settings,...
Yiyun Li: ‘You’re Always Chinese’
The Chinese-born writer of fiction and memoir left in 1996 and has moved on to other settings in her work. But can a writer ever...
Ep. 6: Spy Novels, True Thriller
The China Books podcast talks to Adam Brookes, author of a China spy novel trilogy and a WWII non-fiction thriller, about writing on China for...