Wuxia and xianxia, guest post from Alice Poon

Alice Poon is currently based in Vancouver. After a childhood spent devouring Jin Yong’s wuxia novels, Alice has, over the years, fed herself a steady diet of modern wuxia / xianxia and Chinese history and mythology masterpieces.

Since the release of her two historical Chinese novels, The Green Phoenix and Tales of Ming Courtesans, nostalgia for the magical world of wuxia and xianxia has spurred her to write in the Chinese fantasy genre.

Set in a world of human conflicts, fantastical martial arts, sorcery and celestial magic, Alice’s debut fantasy, The Heavenly Sword, follows a martial maiden’s heartbreaking adventures in her quest for love and justice. The goddess Chang’e is sent to the mortal world to stop the Sky Wolf Zhu Di’s plans to usurp the throne. Reborn as Tang Sai’er, a simple village girl, her celestial mission requires all that Sai’er can give, but in order to protect her family and the village people from the effects of Zhu Di’s brutal civil war, she must also fight a battle against her growing feelings for a member of the evil tyrant’s court. When Sai’er and her allies pit themselves against the wicked new Emperor and other adversaries including the vicious Green Dragon, Sai’er has to enlist the help of immortals. But even with their help, she finds that her dreams are on a collision course with her mission.

You may of course be wondering, what are wuxia and xianxia? Over to Alice…

Translating literature – not such a lonely business after all

 Nicky Harman writes: Literary translation, like writing, is traditionally a one-woman or one-man job. At most, two people might work together to translate a book. Large-scale collaborative translation projects are a thing of the past, the far distant past when the Bible and the Buddhist scriptures were translated. But literary translators are resourceful folk and have begun to get together in mutual support groups. Here, I interview Natascha Bruce and Jack Hargreaves, both of whom are active in such groups and agreed to tell me more about them.

 

Natascha Bruce translates fiction from Chinese. Her work includes Lonely Face by Yeng Pway Ngon, Bloodline by Patigül, Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong and, co-translated with Nicky Harman, A Classic Tragedy by Xu Xiaobin. Forthcoming translations include Mystery Train by Can Xue and Owlish by Dorothy Tse, for which she was awarded a 2021 PEN/Heim grant. She recently moved to Amsterdam.

 

Jack Hargreaves is a translator from East Yorkshire, now based in Leeds. His literary work has appeared on Asymptote Journal, Words Without Borders, LitHub, adda and LA Review of Books China Channel. Published and forthcoming full-length works include Winter Pasture by Li Juan and Seeing by Chai Jing, both of them co-translations with Yan Yan, published by Astra House. Jack translated Shen Dacheng’s short story ‘Novelist in the Attic’ for Comma Press’ The Book of Shanghai and was ALTA’s 2021 Emerging Translator Mentee for Literature from Singapore. He volunteers as a member of the Paper Republic management team and releases a monthly newsletter about Chinese-language literature in translation.

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.

Indie Spotlight: Historical Fiction - When you say ‘authentic’ . . .

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. 

As a historical fiction author, I know that readers has a high expectation of historical accuracy in our books. When we write our characters, we strive to make them as authentic as possible to the era when our stories take place. But the more I read and research history, the more I find that people in the past often behave quite differently from what we expect based on our understanding of social norms and customs of their time. Today, I invited author Melissa Addey to join us and discuss what authenticity means when we talk about historical fiction. Melissa is the author of Forbidden City, a Chinese historical fiction series about the experiences of four girls who were drafted to become concubines of the Emperor in 18th century China. 

Now, over to Melissa . . .