Ep 81 - Xiu Xinyu and The Stars We Raised with Yen Ooi

A star’s coming of age was the process of slowly getting uglier.In the eighty first episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, writer/researcher Yen Ooi and I are gazing up at The Stars We Raised (逃跑星辰 / táopǎo xīngchén), a short story by Xiu Xinyu featured in the all-women + nonbinary anthology The Way Spring Arrives. Once more, a Chinese science fiction story is taking us down to the countryside for melancholy reflections on the pains of growing up. Yen and I dig into the pains of publishing too, from gender to generation and from style to synthesis.-// NEWS ITEMS //I will be hosting Sinoist Books’ November 2022 Book Club on Li Peifu’s GraftYan Ge’s next book Elsewhere is incoming – and it’s not a translationNew academic anthology Readings in Chinese Women’s Philosophical and Feminist Thought could make for a decent Christmas present, if you’ve got a spare £90-// WORD OF THE DAY //(仁 - rén - human kind(ness))-// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //Yen’s musical pairing: Debussy - Suite bergamasque, L. 75 - I. PréludeAngus’ musical pairing: Breaking Benjamin - Had Enough (live, acoustic)Rén 仁 by Yen OoiUFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu GuoHow to Catch a Star by Oliver JeffersA Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky ChambersThe Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan TelWe Could Not See the Stars by Elizabeth Wong