Ep 81 - Xiu Xinyu and The Stars We Raised with Yen Ooi

The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast

A star’s coming of age was the process of slowly getting uglier.

In the eighty first episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, writer/researcher Yen Ooi and I are gazing up at The Stars We Raised (逃跑星辰 / táopǎo xīngchén), a short story by Xiu Xinyu featured in the all-women + nonbinary anthology The Way Spring Arrives. Once more, a Chinese science fiction story is taking us down to the countryside for melancholy reflections on the pains of growing up. Yen and I dig into the pains of publishing too, from gender to generation and from style to synthesis.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• I will be hosting Sinoist Books’ November 2022 Book Club on Li Peifu’s Graft
• Yan Ge’s next book Elsewhere is incoming – and it’s not a translation
• New academic anthology Readings in Chinese Women’s Philosophical and Feminist Thought could make for a decent Christmas present, if you’ve got a spare £90

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(仁 - rén - human kind(ness))

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Yen’s musical pairing: Debussy - Suite bergamasque, L. 75 - I. Prélude
• Angus’ musical pairing: Breaking Benjamin - Had Enough (live, acoustic)
• Rén 仁 by Yen Ooi
• UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo
• How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers
• A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers
• The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel
• We Could Not See the Stars by Elizabeth Wong