Everything you always wanted to know about Chinese literature in translation, by Nicky Harman

Full disclosure: I’m devoting my blog this month to a personal project, The Paper Republic Guide To Contemporary Chinese Literature.

Translations from Chinese – from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and beyond – have proliferated in recent years. With so much choice now available, we at Paper Republic decided to put our heads together and produce a guide for enthusiastic and adventurous readers, to be published on 1st March, 2022.
 

Paper Republic, as many of you will know, was founded in Beijing in 2007, and is now a UK-registered charity (aka non-profit), with a mission of increasing the quantity, quality, and visibility of Chinese literature in English translation. Formed around a core team of volunteers, of whom I am one, it draws on the expertise of many of the leading literary translators working in the field. Its website provides free-to-read translations of the best of new Chinese stories and poetry, as well as a database of Chinese literature and its translation. 

“Who Dare Say?” Reading voices of witness from Burma/Myanmar in a time of war

On Thursday, as aerial photographs began to circulate of long columns of cars leaving Kyiv, their precious cargo of human life appearing painfully small from the sky, two poems came to mind. The first I had seen being shared online by concerned friends and fellow writers, a collective cry of despair and moral culpability – ‘We Lived Happily During The War’, by Odessa-born poet Ilya Kaminsky. And the other, ‘Burma’s Siberia’, I had just read in picking off new shoots will not stop the spring, a new anthology of witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar published last month. 

'Burma’s Siberia’ is dedicated to K Za Win, one of two poets killed when the military opened fire on civilian protestors last March. Another poet Khet Thi, who had read a rousing poem at K Za Win’s funeral, was later abducted from his home, and died in police custody. This poem was written less than two weeks after K Za Win’s death, as the wider literary circle was still reeling from a series of losses. Its author, Kyi Zaw Aye, was a friend of K Za Win’s who had hosted him in his house the night before he was shot. “Never once / the world is on our side”, it begins, “We unfurl our own flag / we unfurl our own sail / always against the wind”. 

Small London Indie Press Leopard Print Releases First Anthology of Asian Stories

This week's Contemporary Voices column is written by Ivy Ngeow as guest writer for Asian Books Blog.  Ivy is a true Renaissance woman (see bio below for all the other hats she also wears). 

We celebrate the first Asian Anthology from Leopard Print. Ivy, take it away...

Small London Indie Press Leopard Print Releases First Anthology of Asian Stories

By Ivy Ngeow, Commissioning Editor,  Asian Anthology: New Writing Vol. 1

Leopard Print was founded in 2019 by Josh Antony Lee and I. With our design and small business backgrounds, the idea was to welcome more books which we loved to read but felt were lacking: beautiful, diverse and eclectic books by the culturally underrepresented. 

Indie-Spotlight: Selling Books with Asian Main Characters - Part II

 

Indie Spotlight is a column by WWII historical fiction author Alexa Kang. The column regularly features hot new releases and noteworthy indie-published books, and popular authors who have found success in the new creative world of independent publishing.

Indie-Spotlight: Selling Books with Asian Main Characters - Part I

 

Indie Spotlight is a column by WWII historical fiction author Alexa Kang. The column regularly features hot new releases and noteworthy indie-published books, and popular authors who have found success in the new creative world of independent publishing.

Talking About Rakugo 2: The Stories Behind the Storytellers, guest post from Kristine Ohkubo

 

If you have been following Asian Books Blog, you’ve probably come across the name Kristine Ohkubo. Kristine is a Los Angeles-based indie-author who uses her work to explore topics related to Japan and Japanese culture.

Beginning with a travel guide to Japan, Kristine has published seven books since 2016, with each work exploring either Japan, Japanese culture, or Japanese history.

Kristine has had a deep love and appreciation for Japan and Japanese culture since she was a teenager growing up in Chicago, Illinois. As an adult, her extensive travels in Japan have enabled her to gain insight into this fascinating country, which she shares with you through her writings.

In June 2021, Kristine released an English guide to the traditional Japanese art form known as rakugo. Rakugo storytelling is a unique performance that uses gestures and narration rather than costumes and props; it requires a high degree of skill to perform. A rakugo story is comprised of both narrative and dialog between multiple characters, all of which are conveyed by a single storyteller. The storyteller strives to express the personality of each character by differentiating their tone of voice, choice of words, manner of speaking, and other factors.

The book titled, Talking About Rakugo: The Japanese Art of Storytelling, was written in collaboration with Tokyo-based English rakugo storyteller, Kanariya Eiraku. 

Eiraku participated in the Tatekawa-ryu rakugo school established by the legendary rakugo performer Tatekawa Danshi. After learning about the essence of rakugo from the rakugo master, he began offering Japanese rakugo classes in Tokyo in 1991. Sixteen years later, he established his English rakugo classes. This year will mark the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Canary English Rakugo classes in Tokyo.

Since 2007, he has performed in front of enthusiastic audiences in Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Laos. He has also translated over sixty classical and contemporary rakugo stories into English.

Eiraku is one of the founding members of the English Rakugo Association in Tokyo. The organization was established in 2020 with the mission to spread rakugo all over the world.

In 2022, Kristine and Eiraku collaborated once again to bring you the second book in the rakugo series, Talking About Rakugo 2: The Stories Behind the Storytellers. The book is officially scheduled to be released on February 7, 2022, which happens to be Eiraku’s birthday!