The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast

You couldn’t get to grips with fate, but the enemy you could see and touch was your own body In the sixty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding with The Women, the Camels, and the Dholes , one of the stories contained within the Selected Stories of Xue Mo (雪漠小说精选 / Xuěmò Xiǎoshuō Jīngxuǎn). Two women are joining me on this trek: audiobook producer Nicola Clayt...

In-your-face. I want more in-your-face, if you please. In the sixty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are being Raised by Wolves (狼養的 / Láng Yǎng De), just like Amang and her translator Steve Bradbury . Revel in trash. Bound down a mountain. Take a ride on a nuclear sub. Argue furiously in favour of your preferred adverb. Do all these things, and you will channel the s...

Maybe I would only begin to understand these things when I became fatherless too, having no-one to lean on, the bitter solitude of not knowing what you ought to say before the world In the sixty seventh of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are going Faraway (遠方 / Yuǎnfāng) with Lo Yi-Chin . Lighting lamps with me as time, memory, and family dissolve into an indistinct fog is the writer,...

The rocking of the boat created the illusion that all the lights were moving In the sixty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are adrift in Hong Kong Nights (香港之夜 / Xiāng Gǎng Zhīyè), as fleetingly recollected by Sichuan’s long-surviving left-anarchist writer, Ba Jin . Joining me in the constellations is fellow Sino-lit podcaster Luo Tianqi – here to talk about revolutio...

The best attributes of anyone or anything usually reside on the surface, which is where, in fact, all of us live out our lives In the sixty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are swathing ourselves in The Invisibility Cloak (隐身衣 / Yǐnshēn Yī). Languishing with me in the peace and pain of relative obscurity are Giray Fidan and Rauno Sainio , two translators of the book’s...

‘Suppose the universe is a program. Everything that we can observe is the result of the machine-executable code. But the cosmic microwave background can be understood as the record of some earlier version of the source code.’ In the sixty forth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we bear witness to the Coming of the Light (开光 / Kāiguāng), penned by the shaman-consulting Google grad...

In my innocent youth, I was a paragon of virtue, but after wandering for so long in the red dust of this world I had joined the forces of evil In the sixty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are Dancing Through Red Dust (原谅我红尘颠倒 / Yuánliàng Wǒ Hóngchén Diāndǎo), a nightmarish lurch through the PRC (il)legal system dreamed up by the Shandong webnovelist-turned-dissident Muron...

Before us stood the long abandoned skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Sun's weak light casting their long shadows across the quiet ice of the New York Harbor. In my tipsy haze, tears began to gush down my cheeks. In the sixty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are setting sail on The Wandering Earth (流浪地球 / Liúlàng Dìqiú), drawn up and captained by Liu Cixin himself. Callin...

I loathe reason. Reason is the sort of rubbish you can indulge in when life is sweet, like love and honour. I totally reject it. In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo . Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman ....

Just as Nga-Yee thought everything was going back to normal, Siu-Man stepped from the window of their twenty-second-story flat In the sixtieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are solving the case of Second Sister (網內人 / Wǎng Nèi Rén), penned by crime connoisseur Chan Ho-kei . Logged on with guest-level access and ready to follow the trail wherever it leads is 3-time visitor...

It is a long and painful process to see oneself clearly, as is the process of returning to one’s childhood. In the fifty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are talking with someone who is More Than One Child (隐形小孩 / Yǐnxíng Xiǎohái), a woman as friendly as she is fearless: Shen Yang . She’s here on this episode, and so is her translator, friend-of-the-pod, and returnee...

The moment I was bitten, I died and became another thing. Now I am loitering on the other shore of the Styx, listening to the past from beyond its waves. In the fifty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are picking Flower of the Other Shore (彼岸花 / Bǐ'àn Huā), a romantic(!) zombie short story by A Que . Here to help me find sympathy for the undead is the tale’s translator...

‘Chopin always reminds me of being lovelorn in Penang’ [ this is episode 5 of our Taiwan Season ] In the fifty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are suffering from Home Sickness (匿逃者 / Nì Táo Zhě), a short story collection by Chih-ying Lay . Here to ease this terrible affliction is the book’s translator: reformed Buddhist and agile herper Darryl Sterk . - // NEWS ITEM...

‘According to the ancient precepts, grief supersedes all formalities’ [ this is episode 4 of our Taiwan Season ] [ full episode transcript ] In the fifty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are introducing ourselves to the Taipei People (台北人 / Táiběi Rén), as written by Pai Hsien-yung . Joining me to question the merits of nostalgia and muse aimlessly on umbrellas and the...

‘Only if you go to places nobody’s ever been can you see the colours nobody’s ever seen’ [ this is episode 3 of our Taiwan Season ] In the fifty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are meeting The Man with the Compound Eyes (复眼人 / Fùyǎn Rén). Brace yourself for the impact of an ecological, apocalyptic, and internationalist vortex of literary weirdness. Joining me to weath...

‘Some desires, once formed, are impossible to fulfil, so they become frustrations instead. That’s the problem with going forth into new worlds’ [ this is episode 2 of our Taiwan Season ] In the fifty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are thumbing through the Notes of a Crocodile (鳄鱼手记 / Èyú Shǒujì). Joining me on the lookout for the shy and elusive reptiloid is Conor...

‘Two peach trees, two entirely different universes.’ [ this is episode 1 of our Taiwan Season ] In the fifty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are peeling back The Membranes (膜 / Mó). Joining me at their respective computer terminals in the ocean floor biodome are its author Chi Ta-wei and translator Ari Larissa Heinrich . - // NEWS ITEMS // PANEL: Exploring Chinese Scien...

‘An unruly monkey like you has to be restrained somehow, otherwise you’ll never reform’ In the fifty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are departing from the Tang Empire on a haphazard Journey to the West (西游记 / Xī Yóu Jì). Talking me through the transformations is Julia Lovell , translator of JttW’s latest, extremely readable English translation. - // NEWS ITEMS // A...

'I stand alone on the earth, unable to bring the show to an end' In the 51st episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, we're heading into the far west to come face-to-face with Li Juan , a Han Chinese writer who has found some degree of fame writing soulfully about her experiences living among the Kazakh herders of Xinjiang Province. Braving the frontier with me are two of her translators...

Starting a podcast is not a dinner party In the fiftieth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, I put my feet up and have a beer! Woohoo! - // NEWS ITEMS // Beijing Lights Archives | Spittoon Sci-Fi Writer or Prophet? The Hyperreal Life of Chen Qiufan Mither Tongue: Jidi Majia's poetry in 3 Scots dialects - // Handy TrChFic Links // Episode Transcripts // Help Support TrChFic INSTAGRAM...

'One morning, Salinger was woken from sleep by deafening noises. Dazed, he gazed outside the window and saw a row of gleaming Baekdu bulldozers, which had been modified from Chonma-ho battle tanks, bearing down on his cabin.' In the forty ninth episode we continue our megacrossover, this time tackling modern literature. Once more unto the jazz hall, dear friends, once more, as we tackle: lamppost...

'What sort of a fiend are you that you dare change into my appearance, take my descendants captive, occupy my immortal cave, and assume such airs?' In the forty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are doing something a little different! In this episode half of a small army of Chinese lit podcasters join me to discuss their favourite stories from dynastic China. - // NEWS IT...

When you've stared at the past for so long that time dissolves, you'll be able to wake from your slumber In the forty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are falling into Beijing Coma (肉之土 / Ròu Zhī Tǔ). Avid Ma Jian reader Ronald Torrance is here to guide me from perimeter to epicentre of this colossal novel, and the weighty events it reckons with. Even without politic...

If anyone is reading this notebook — don’t come looking for me. Don’t. In the forty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are undergoing black initiation into The Flock of Ba Hui (巴虺的牧群 / Bāhuī de Mùqún). Returning to the show to rescue me from the abyss - or hurl me into it - is the extremely online Dylan Levi King . We have quite a beast to wrestle with this episode. Lo...

In bars like this, on nights like this, the people of Yong'an would talk of death In the forty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are hunting for the Strange Beasts of China (异兽志 - Yì Shòu Zhì). Two very special guests are joining me this time - the book's author Yan Ge and its translator Jeremy Tiang . If I sound a little off-kilter this episode, it's because I'm star s...