Ep 61 - Chen Xiwo and The Book of Sins with Nicky Harman

I loathe reason. Reason is the sort of rubbish you can indulge in when life is sweet, like love and honour. I totally reject it.In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo. Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman. Here’s what we deal with: pain, incest, and the political uses of shock, horror, and offensiveness. Are you sure about this? You can delete this episode now. Do you choose to hit play?-// NEWS ITEMS //The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet by Bogna Konoir - applies Liu Cixin’s logic to cyberspaceSense of Place - new issue of Pathlight MagazineGei Fei’s Peach Blossom Paradise bags spot in translated literature finalist list for US 2021 National Book AwardsTOR announces full contents of The Way Spring Arrives-// WORD OF THE DAY //(痛 - tòng - pain)-// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //Chen Xiwo’s speech on literary censorship in the PRC, given at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club in 2010A Banned Take on Contemporary China: Wall Street Journal review of The Book of SinsLit by Mary Karr, a considerably more functional individualPlaying for Thrills … 1988: I Want to Talk with the World … Dancing Through Red Dust … Shanghai Baby … A Perfect Crime