Summer News: Magazine Launch, Author of the Month, and New Developments
Writing Chinese has been on the road again with a special event at this year's ACCL (Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature) conference, held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. We were delighted that the Hong Kong launch of our special China-themed issue of Stand Magazine was featured as one of the conference highlights.
Our event took place during a day focused on the theme of 'Translating Hong Kong', featuring a panel discussion and readings by authors Dorothy Tse, Hon Lai-chu, and Dung Kai Cheung, and translators Nicky Harman, Andrea Lingenfelter, Yau Wai Ping and Jennifer Feeley. We're grateful to Dorothy and Nicky for reading from Dorothy's story 'The Man Who Ate Everything', translated by Natascha Bruce, and featured in Stand, as well as to James Shea for reading some of his poems, and Tammy Ho Lai-Ming, for reading her piece 'Ankle-Deep Red Firecracker Papers'.
Author of the Month Hon Lai-chu
We're also very pleased to announce that our featured author this summer is Hon Lai-chu 韓麗珠, who we were lucky enough to hear read, along with her translator Andrea Lingenfelter, at the conference. If you go to our bookclub page you can find out more about her, and read her story 'Notes on an Epidemic' ( 感冒誌 ) in the original Chinese and in English translation. Thank you to Muse Publishing for allowing us to reprint the story, which is part of the collection The Kite Family ( 風箏家族 ).
New Project Developments
Regular visitors might also notice that our site has had a face-lift! (Thank you to Peter Edwards from the University of Leeds for all his work on this!) Our new look is partly in preparation for a new part of the project, which we're in the process of launching: 'Reading Chinese: Engaging New Audiences' has been made possible with follow-on funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and through the support of our project partners Paper Republic, Balestier Press, Penguin China and the IOE Confucius Institute, and is aimed at bringing new audiences to Chinese fiction in translation. In partnership with the IOE Confucius Institute we're currently developing resources for teachers and schools, and building a dedicated team of teaching ambassadors to help encourage school pupils to read Chinese literature in translation, and to support busy teachers. In partnership with the wonderful collective of translators and authors that is Paper Republic, we are developing a tagged and fully searchable database of contemporary stories in translation, to give readers a flavour of what is available. The full stories are free-to-view, thanks to the generosity of the translators and the whole Paper Republic team. And we're also setting up a book review network, in collaboration with Balestier Press and Penguin China. Reviewers will be sent a copy of the book, and their review will be published on our website, creating a valuable resource for teachers and students of Chinese, as well as for members of the public looking for a good place to start with Chinese fiction in translation! (There will also be opportunities for reviewers to join one of two residential weekends in Leeds to meet authors and translators and discuss their work. We'll be opening applications for this soon, so keep an eye on our website!).
If you'd like to apply to join our book review network, set up a school bookclub, or register interest in becoming a teaching ambassador, please email us at writingchinese@leeds.ac.uk.