The British literary quarterly Granta has published a new issue dedicated to Chinese writers, featuring familiar mainstays of contemporary literature and some fresh new voices. This week on Sinica, I chatted with Thomas Meaney, editor of Granta, about what's happening in the literary scene in China today and how this fantastically interesting issue came together. Tom is wonderfully thoughtful and articulate, and we really get into some of the individual stories and the larger trends they may or may not represent.
3:17 – Tom’s familiarity with Chinese literature and China
4:40 – Why Granta dedicated this issue to Chinese literature, how the issue came together, and how Granta found its translators
10:54 – Balancing political considerations with artistic merits in curating this issue
17:20 – The Chinese literary obsession with losers and the role of losers in Xiao Hai’s “Adrift in the South”
25:11 – The so-called Dongbei Renaissance, and Wu Qi’s interview and why he pushes back on the idea of the Dongbei Renaissance genre
33:02 – Granta staff favorites
35:18 – The phenomenon of gratuitous name-dropping and borrowing stylistically from other writers
38:05 – The issue’s three photo essays by Feng Li, Li Jie and Zhan Jungang, and Haohui Liu
44:36 – Yu Hua’s “Tomorrow I’ll Get Past It”
50:09 – Mo Yan’s “The Leftie Sickle”
53:10 – Yan Lianke’s “Black Pig Hair, White Pig Hair”
57:56 – The "filmability" of some of the short stories and the connection between the film world and literary writers in China
1:00:08 – Where you can get Granta and pick up this issue
Recommendations:
Tom: The Egalitarian Moment: Asia and Africa, 1950-1980 by Anthony Low, a comparative history of land reform
Kaiser: The ever-expanding library of guitarless backing tracks on YouTube to play along to
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