Taiwan Travelogue – Yang Shuangzi

In this podcast, we look at the novel that was, a little more than a week ago, awarded the International Booker Prize. Taiwan Travelogue is a novel that pretends to be a travelogue, where a Japanese woman from Nagasaki, an important writer in the Japanese empire. She travels to Taiwan to travel and talk about […]

Stephen Owen Obituary

I am sad to report that Stephen Owen, a professor at Harvard University who wrote about Chinese poetry, just passed away at the age of 79 in Massachusetts.  This short podcast talks a bit about one of the giants of the field. Here is a Chinese-language obituary that was just published.

Li Wai-yee and the Confucius Chronicles

In this podcast, I got the chance to do a face-to-face interview with Professor Li Wai-yee, a Harvard scholar who is one of the most prolific scholars of Chinese literature. During our interview, we discussed her new book, The Confucius Chronicles, just released by Columbia University Press, along with the massive role that Confucius has […]

Kublai Khan, Morris Rossabi and the 10th Anniversary of the Podcast

First off, I am dropping the podcast on the 10th Anniversary of our first episode. On April 9th, 2016, the Chinese Literature Podcast had its first episodes. The first episode of the podcast’s next decade is Morris Rossabi, the scholar who made the world rethink Kublai Khan and the Mongols. He wrote the first good […]

Du Fu – Spring Gazes – Tang Poetry Masters Series

Today, we finish up the 3 part series on Tang Poetry Masters with a look at Du Fu, China’s poet historian. The An Lushan Rebellion tore the Tang Dynasty in half and is one of the defining events of Chinese history. Du Fu is pivotal for our memory of that event, as his poems are […]

Tang Poetry Masters Series – Wang Wei and his Moment of Zen

Today, the podcast gets to Wang Wei and a Buddhist poem he wrote with the eye of a painter. Wang Wei is the least popular of the three High Tang poets, at least, since the Song Dynasty, but, back in the day, he was the most popular, more popular than Li Bai and Du Fu. […]

Tang Poetry Masters Series – Li Bai and the West

Today is the beginning of a three part series I am going to do on the three big Tang poets, Li Bai, Wang Wei and Du Fu. In this episode, we take a look at Li Bai, often considered China’s Greatest poet, and his relationship with the regions to China’s West, modern day Xinjiang and […]

Interview with Susan Wan Dolling

Today, Lee gets to chat with Susan Wan Dolling, Hong-Kong-American poet, novelist and translator. She recently published her latest book of Song poetry translations, What the Cuckoo Said, but she has long been working on translating Chinese poetry into an English that does what is hard to do, that preserves the music that you hear […]

Zoom Talk I gave on the Book for the Modern China Lecture Series

I was honored Professor Jeremy Murray invited me back to the Modern China Lecture Series to talk about my book, China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read.

Return of the Rob

On this episode, I give a brief update on the book’s status, which should be in your hands by mid-November. And also, Rob returns, joining the podcast from France to talk about what he has been up to and also to chat with Lee about the book.  Transcript generated by AI  My name is Lee […]

Moonstruck: Wandering the Galaxy with Li Bai

When people in China think of poetry, two names come immediately to mind: the Tang Dynasty (618-907 B.C.E.) poets Du Fu and Li Bai. In part two of our discussion of these greats, we take a look at one of Li Bai’s most famous works, and discuss why he’s our go-to Tang literary figure to […]

Grief in a Fallen City: Du Fu’s Ever-Present Histories

When people in China think of poetry, two names spring to mind: the Tang Dynasty (618-907 B.C.E.) poets Du Fu and Li Bai. In this first of a pair of podcasts on their works, we examine a well-known poem by Du Fu and discuss why the poet was both the greatest master of Chinese poetic form, […]

High Plains Drifter: Li Shangyin

Though not as famous as his predecessors, Li Shangyin, the premier poet from the Late Tang, is an amazing poet. Furthermore, his adoration for Du Fu and other Tang poets helped create the cult of the Tang that is still going on in China. In today’s podcast, Rob and Lee take a look at a […]

Revolution or Reform: A Discussion of the May 4th Movement

Talk to anyone in China, and they will telly you that May 4th, 1919 is the day that modern China began. Everything before that is feudal, everything after that progress. But is it really that black and white? Rob and Lee take a look at the May 4th Movement, both a political and literary event, and try to […]

A Male Mencius’ Mother

On today’s podcast, Rob and Lee discuss a story that is relevant to today’s America as much as it is to  China: Male Mencius’ Mother, a sort of medieval Chinese version My Two Dads. In the story of A Male Mencius’ Mother, we find ourselves in Fujian, on the edge of Chinese civilization, purportedly an […]

‘Cause I’m the Taxman: The Voyages of Yu Gong

The Tribute of Yu (禹貢) is one of the oldest mythological texts related to Chinese statehood. Yu was a semi-mythical god-king who traveled around the nine states noting what each of these states had that was worth giving as tribute to the emperor. The text is almost certainly not as old as it purports to […]

Emperor Shen’s New Groove: Song Dynasty Exam Reform

Have you ever heard about China’s intense exam culture? Much like its East Asian counterparts, China both loves and loves to hates its exam system. The most infamous, the Gaokao, determines the testtaker’s college choice, and even major in some cases. What if we told you that this exam culture had more than a thousand […]

How to Be A/Political: The Seven Books of the Sun

Dead just months before the June 4th massacre in Tiananmen Square, Hai Zi is held up as the great “pure” poet of contemporary China, unconcerned with politics. But how true is that? We discuss his epic work, The Seven Books of the Sun, by way of grappling with the question.           […]

Narration and Revolution: The True Story of Ah Q

How does a low-life moron become one of the great tragic figures in modern Chinese culture? Lu Xun’s 1921 novella The True Story of Ah Q, a masterpiece of the May 4th Movement, presents just such a situation. We discuss the story’s unique narrative choices, and Lu Xun’s varying reception in Taiwan and mainland China.     […]

Censure and Celebration: Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters His Pearl Shirt

  One of the most acclaimed 话本 (hua ben – vernacular short stories) in Feng Menglong’s 1620 collection Stories Old and New (tr. Yang Shuhui and Yang Yunqin). We discuss the question of irony in a story about both marital and extramarital bliss, and explore the reasons behind the story’s famously racy details.         […]