Yu Hua
The Challenges of Conveying Absurd Reality: An Interview with Chinese Writer Yu Hua
The Challenges of Conveying Absurd Reality: An Interview with Chinese Writer Yu Hua
As the Nobel awards approached, the Asia editors at Los Angeles Review of Books wanted to check in with Yu Hua, the spirited Chinese author of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, To Live,and Brothers, among others, who also has a short story collection, Boy in the Twilight: Stories of the Hidden China, coming out in January. But Yu didn’t want to talk about the Nobel — “Let’s talk about literature instead. It’s more important.” Thus, Los Angeles Review of Books Asia Co-editor Megan Shank and Yu exchanged Chinese-language e-mails about history’s most over- and underrated Chinese writers, the evolution of an ancient language and why Yu will never read Anna Karenina on a cell phone. Below, Shank’s translation of excerpts from their conversation.
MEGAN SHANK: Which Chinese writers do you enjoy? And what type of work? Who is the most underrated Chinese writer in Chinese literary history? And who is the most overrated? Please briefly describe the status of contemporary Chinese literature and the challenges it faces.
YU HUA: Among classical literature, I most appreciate works of “biji.” [Ed. note: a work that may include short stories, literary criticism, anecdotes and sketches, philosophical musings]— from Tang and Song dynasty legends to Ming and Qing dynasty biji, they are brief and vivid.
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MEGAN SHANK: Which Chinese writers do you enjoy? And what type of work? Who is the most underrated Chinese writer in Chinese literary history? And who is the most overrated? Please briefly describe the status of contemporary Chinese literature and the challenges it faces.
YU HUA: Among classical literature, I most appreciate works of “biji.” [Ed. note: a work that may include short stories, literary criticism, anecdotes and sketches, philosophical musings]— from Tang and Song dynasty legends to Ming and Qing dynasty biji, they are brief and vivid.
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