OCI Modern Chinese Literature Online Book Club - Session 10

Dates: Friday, July 11, 2025 - 13:00 to 14:00
Location: Online via MS Teams

An image showing the title of the book club and images of the facilitators

Please join us for the 10th session of our friendly online book club. You do not need to have attended previous book club sessions to attend, all are welcome.

In this session, facilitated by Nicky Harman and Emily Jones from Paper Republic, we'll be discussing the non-fictional story ‘The Nursing Home Rightist’ (老院的右派) by YUAN Ling (袁凌). We are delighted that the translator Jack Hargreaves will also be joining us for the session.

You can read the translation of the story in English here: Read Paper Republic: The Nursing Home Rightist

The original Chinese version of the story is available here.

About the facilitators:

Nicky Harman translates fiction from Chinese into English. Several of her translations have been recipients of an English PEN Translates award and she has won the 2020 Special Book Award of China. She is also trustee of Paper-Republic.org.

Emily Jones is a founding trustee of Paper Republic, a charity which promotes Chinese literature in English translation. Her publications include novels such as Black Holes (性之罪) by He Jiahong
(何家弘), short stories and poetry.

Jack Hargreaves is a translator of Yorkshire extraction. His literary work, recognised by English PEN and PEN/Heim, has appeared on adda, Arts of the Working Class, Asymptote Journal, Granta, LitHub, The Southern Review, Samovar, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. Published and forthcoming full-length works include Winter Pasture by Li Juan and Seeing by Chai Jing, both co-translated with Yan Yan (Astra House); Reimagining Nanyang by Chia Joo Ming (Ethos Books, 2025); I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan (Allen Lane/Astra House, 2025), and The Man Under Water by Xiaoyu Lu (Honford Star, 2026). Jack has taught translation at the universities of Leeds and Aberdeen, SOAS and Hong Kong Baptist University, and writes for the China Books Review.

The book club takes place online using MS teams and is held in English. You do not need to be able to speak Chinese to attend. A recording will also be made available on this page after the event.

Please register here on Eventbrite to attend

Here are some questions to consider for the session:

1. What do you know about the life of the elderly in China? How does this story align with or depart from that perspective?

2. There is a contrast in the piece between the two eras of Zhou Peitong’s life, one characterised by activity and the other by stasis, though the former is only alluded to with sparse detail and some mentions of other political figures. What impression does this give of Zhou’s “rightist” days? How does this line up with your own knowledge of China from the late-50s into the 70s?

3. What do you think Yuan Ling could be saying about modern China in this piece, if anything?

4. In what ways could Captain from Castile be symbolic here?

5. Why do you think Yuan Ling chose to bring attention to this story and this person?

We look forward to seeing you there!