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November 2014: Yan Ge 颜歌

White-Horse

Yan Ge was born in Sichuan in the People’s Republic of China. She recently completed a PhD in comparative literature at Sichuan University and is the chairperson of the China Young Writer Association. Her early work focused on the wonders, gods and ghosts of Chinese myth and made her especially popular with teenagers. The novel May Queen (2008) saw her break through as a critically-acclaimed author. She now writes realist fiction, strongly Sichuan-based, focussing with warmth, humour and razor-sharp insights on squabbling families and small-town life. People’s Literature magazine recently chose her as one of China’s twenty future literary masters, and in 2012 she was chosen as Best New Writer by the prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize.

(From Paper Republic)

Yan_Ge1

Yan Ge's novella White Horse, translated by Nicky Harman, has recently been published by Hope Road Publishing.

Her new novel 《我们家》(The Chilli Bean Paste Clan) was published in Chinese in May 2013 by Zhejiang Literature Press.

Our November book club story is the first chapter of the novel, translated by Nicky Harman, and originally published in Peregrine, the English language companion to Chutzpah magazine, under the title 'Dad's Not Dead'.

(Edited to add: Nicky's translation of The Chilli Bean Paste Clan is published by Balestier Press for release in May 2018.)

You can find the Chinese story and the English translation on the left of this page. Our book club meeting in Leeds will be on November 12th, from 3pm to 4.30pm in Costa Coffee, in Blackwells Bookshop (opposite the university).