Pathlight Available through Apple, Amazon

This morning, I talked to a journalist for quite a while about an article she’s writing on publishing Chinese literature in translation. On of the prompts for her article is Pathlight: New Chinese Writing, a magazine that I haven’t mention on here before, but definitely should have.

In addition to a general interest in this magazine—how much do you know about what’s going on in Chinese literature?—it’s also worth mentioning because it’s now available through both Amazon and Apple for $6.99. (Which is a decent price for the 277-page Winter issue.)

The complete table of contents for the Winter issue can be found here and contains Mo Yan’s Nobel Lecture, along with other pieces about him and his work, along with nine works of fiction and works from ten poets—none of which I’m currently familiar with.

It is kind of stunning that given the size of China, the insane number of writers who live there, and the general interest in what’s going on in the country on the whole, there were only 16 works by Chinese writers translated into English and published here in 2012. One can trot out all the normal reasons to explain why this might be the case, but the biggest in my mind is the utter lack of awareness among U.S. editors as to what’s going on in Chinese literature these days.

Which is why I’m going to be reading more issues of Pathlight . . .