Modern Online Chinese Literature Book Club - Session 3

The third session of the online Modern Chinese Literature Book Club will meet again on 20th January 2023. All are welcome and you do not need to have attended any prior book club sessions. The session will be held in English.

Facilitated by Michelle Deeter, Nicky Harman, Emily Jones and Dylan Levi King - experts in Chinese literature and translation studies, our fun, interactive and informal book club will be run in English and focuses on the English translation.

In this session, we will be looking at the works of A Yi and two short stories in particular, one translated by Michelle Deeter called 'Who's Speaking Please?' and one called 'A Message Held to the Flame' translated by Dylan Levi King.

We are delighted that both translators will join us for this session.

Format for the session:

After an introduction to the author and the stories, Michelle, Emily, Dyan and Nick will lead an interactive discussion with the group focusing on some pre-set questions.

In our book club discussion, we will chat through the questions and any other comments or questions you have as a group. Please come prepared to share your thoughts on the story and ask questions, either about the story, the author, the translation process or anything else about Chinese literature in translation!

We look forward to seeing you there!  

You can read the stories on the Paper Republic website links below:

Who's Speaking Please?

A Message Held to the Flame

A PDF of the story and essay to be discussed is available in both English and Chinese here. 

The Chinese version of this event is available here if you want your students to read it in Chinese.

Questions to consider for the session are as follows:

Questions in relation to Who's Speaking Please

• The man’s emotions hit extremes in a short amount of time. He starts out saying: “Theirs was the kind of eternal love that transcended history, wars, science and technology.” Then he says “The distance between them had never been so vast.” Do you find this to be realistic?
• Some people argue that the best stories to bring into translation have an element of the universal and an element specific to that culture. Do you think this extremely short story achieves that? What is the universal element and what is the culturally specific element?
• Is translating swear words appropriate in literature?

Questions in relation to A Message Held to the Flame

• A Yi cites as allegories for the pandemic two paranoid games—one, the social deduction game Werewolf, and the other the fight to the death in Fukasaku Kinji's film, Battle Royale (2000). Leaving aside earlier depictions of epidemic, what games, works of art, films, or television evoke for you an atmosphere similar to what A Yi depicts?
• This essay came very early in the pandemic, when it was unclear how things might play out. The past three years have seen no shortage of takes, popular epidemiology, late-night talk show segments, etc. dealing with the subject of the pandemic, but serious literary treatments never really materialized. Is it important that someone produce a great novel of COVID—and could you bear to read it, having lived through it?