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Zero and Other Fictions

Zero and Other Fictions is a collection that displays a unique range. Huang Fan has been writing for over 30 years and it shows (though he may have been secluded for nearly a decade during this time, studying Buddhism and not writing much fiction). The “other fictions” included in this collection include a satirical tale ...

"Zero and Other Fictions" by Huang Fan [Read This Next]

This week’s Read This Next title is Zero and Other Fictions by Huang Fan and translated from the Chinese by John Balcom. Columbia University Press is bringing this out on October 4th. Here’s Lily Ye’s description: Huang is a celebrated modern Taiwanese writer who has been writing for over 30 years. This ...

Liao Yiwu's First U.S. Appearance

Liao Yiwu, author of The Corpse Walker and one of China’s “most exciting and most censored writers” is making his first U.S. appearance tomorrow night. In and of itself, this is pretty cool—The Corpse Walker is a damn fine book, and he’s going to be appearing with Philip Gourevitch and Salman ...

Latest Review: "Vertical Motion" by Can Xue

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is Lily Ye’s review of Vertical Motion, this week’s Read This Next title. Vertical Motion is coming out next month from Open Letter, and is translated from the Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping. For an “experimental” Chinese writer, Can Xue has ...

Vertical Motion

The word that continues to come to mind as I read Can Xue’s short stories in Vertical Motion is uncanny. Her stories summon the feeling of the familiar as unfamiliar, of the known as unknown. The uncanny, Freud’s unheimlisch, is often described as having to do with a return, a repetition of the known which reveals an ...

Interview with Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping [Read This Next]

As part of this week’s Read This Next activities, we just published an interview with Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping about their translation of Can Xue’s Vertical Motion. Here’s an excerpt: Read This Next: You’ve been working with Can Xue for a while now. How did you first discover her ...

Vertical Motion by Can Xue [Read This Next]

This week’s Read This Next title is Vertical Motion, a new collection of stories by Can Xue, which is translated from the Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping and coming out from Open Letter in mid-September. Super-intern Lily Ye explains why we selected this book for RTN: This week we’ve chosen Can ...