Ep 75 - A Yi and The Curse with Jeffrey Kinkley

The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast

“Are you going to let your son die for nothing?”

In the seventy fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are surviving The Curse (杨村的一则诅咒 / yáng cūn de yī zé zǔzhòu). My partner for this investigation is literary Sinologist Jeffrey Kinkley. What exactly are we dealing with here? A tale of a backfiring curse, or a backfiring society? For realist writing to penetrate our often nightmarish world and scratch The Real, does it have to get weird first? Detective K and I are on the case. Don’t expect comforting answers.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Next London Chinese Sci-fi Group meeting on July 31st: The Strange Girl by Xiu Xinyu, tr Emily Jin

• Caroline Jortay announces publication date for HK Lit anthology from Editions Jentayu

• Chinese woman wrote her own alternate history of Russia on Wikipedia

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(游离 - yóulí - to disassociate)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• Rudolph Wagner on Chinese Scifi as Lobby Literature

• The Woodpecker, the Chinese justice ministry’s literary journal

• L'Étranger, by Albert Camus

• Two Lives - a recent A Yi short story collection

• Jeffrey’s own Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China