Granta's Chinese Literature Issue: A Chat with Editor Thomas Meaney

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2024

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The British literary quarterly Granta has published a new issue dedicated to Chinese writers, featuring familiar mainstays of contemporary literature and some fresh new voices. This week on Sinica, I chatted with Thomas Meaney, editor of Granta, about what's happening in the literary scene in China today and how this fantastically interesting issue came together. Tom is wonderfully thoughtful and articulate, and we really get into some of the individual stories and the larger trends they may or may not represent.

3:17 – Tom’s familiarity with Chinese literature and China

4:40 – Why Granta dedicated this issue to Chinese literature, how the issue came together, and how Granta found its translators

10:54 – Balancing political considerations with artistic merits in curating this issue

17:20 – The Chinese literary obsession with losers and the role of losers in Xiao Hai’s “Adrift in the South”

25:11 – The so-called Dongbei Renaissance, and Wu Qi’s interview and why he pushes back on the idea of the Dongbei Renaissance genre

33:02 – Granta staff favorites

35:18 – The phenomenon of gratuitous name-dropping and borrowing stylistically from other writers

38:05 – The issue’s three photo essays by Feng Li, Li Jie and Zhan Jungang, and Haohui Liu

44:36 – Yu Hua’s “Tomorrow I’ll Get Past It”

50:09 – Mo Yan’s “The Leftie Sickle”

53:10 – Yan Lianke’s “Black Pig Hair, White Pig Hair”

57:56 – The "filmability" of some of the short stories and the connection between the film world and literary writers in China

1:00:08 – Where you can get Granta and pick up this issue

Recommendations:

Tom: The Egalitarian Moment: Asia and Africa, 1950-1980 by Anthony Low, a comparative history of land reform

Kaiser: The ever-expanding library of guitarless backing tracks on YouTube to play along to

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynical podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China.
0:13.3	In this program, we'll look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents, and cultural trends
0:18.8	that can help us better understand what's happening in
0:21.6	China's politics, foreign relations, economics, and society. Join me each week for in-depth
0:27.6	conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China.
0:34.1	I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Cynica is supported this
0:39.1	year by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a national
0:43.7	resource center for the study of East Asia. The Cynica podcast will remain free for listeners,
0:49.4	but if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm doing with the podcast, please
0:53.3	consider lending your support.
0:55.3	You can get me at Cinecapod at gmail.com.
0:58.7	And listeners, please support my work at www.cenapodcast.com.
1:03.5	Become a subscriber and enjoy, in addition to the show, the complete transcript of the podcast,
1:09.4	essays from me, as well as from some of your favorite writers
1:12.4	and podcasters and columnists, with offerings like the China Global South podcast, this week in
1:18.2	China's history, the ultimate China bookshelf, Seneca Chinese phrase of the week, and more.
1:24.3	So before I jump into today's show, let me add an additional plea. Today is Thursday,
1:29.0	November 7th, and this is the first show I'm recording after the American election. The future of
1:34.4	U.S.-China relations is, to put it mildly, in pretty grave peril with the specter of the
1:39.6	imposition of new, even higher tariffs, the likelihood that unalloyed China Hawks are going to gain appointments
1:45.2	to crucial offices in D.C. And Beijing's likely response to these developments, all these things
1:51.1	loom over the relationship and threaten to widen the chasm still further. So it's really important,
	...

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