Taiwan Travelogue – Addendum

In May, I did a podcast on Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuangzi. I screwed something up. In this episode, I explain what I got wrong and why. 

Interview with Salih Hudayar – Foreign Minister of the East Turkestan Government-in-Exile

In today’s episode, I got the chance to speak with Salih Hudayar, the Foreign Minister of the East Turkestan Government-in-Exile. We talked about Uyghur literature, Uyghur history and even American history. 

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 […]

Zhuangzi’s Dead Wife

Death is tough to grapple with, but it is a reality we, all to often, face the wrong way. In this episode, we take a look at how Zhuangzi, the famed Warring States philosopher, mourns his dead wife. 

Mr. Uighur – A Poem by Abdukhaliq Uighur

Where did the Uighur name come from? It might seem crazy, but a poet in the 1930’s took Uighur as his penname, and the Uighur people may have taken their name from that man (well, it is a little bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics). Abdukhaliq Uighur called on his people […]

Xi Xi – Floating City

Xi Xi, one of Hong Kong’s most famous writers, pens a weird, postmodern portrait of Hong Kong. Rob does not like it, Lee does. Why? Take a listen as they tackle this weird and sometimes wonderful effort to deal with what Hong Kong is. Or, is it even Hong Kong?

Mencius – Are People Inherently Good?

This week, we tackle the biggest question in Confucianism: are people born good and made bad by their environment, or are they inherently bad and only made good through rules and punishments. We look at a passage in the Mencius, arguably the most important text in the Confucian tradition (yes, maybe even more important the […]

Shi Zhi – The Wave and the Ocean

Today, we take a look at a poet who, astonishingly, was writing interesting poetry during the height of the Maoist era. His is the most underground of the underground poets, and today we look at one of the poems by Shi Zhi, “The Ocean and the Wave.” Rob’s Translation The Ocean – A Song in […]

Li Bai – Let’s Party

Can Li Bai, China’s greatest poet, be translated into frat-boy-ese? Lee tried.  It is not as crazy as it sounds. Li Bai is an alcoholic poet. Though he has long been translated into a highfalutin English that sounds like a stuffy Shakespere. But Li Bai is just talking about getting drunk.  Does Lee’s translation work? […]

Chen Qiufan – Waste Tide – Part II

In this episode, Part Two of our two part series on Chen Qiufan’s first novel, Rob and Lee try to pivot away from the narrower discussions of what happens in the novel and more on a broader discussion of its place in Chinese Science Fiction. Whether or not they succeed in doing that…well, we’ll let […]

Chen Qiufan – Waste Tide – Part 1

This is part one in a two part series on the novel called Wast Tide. This is Chen Qiufan’s first novel, its a science-fiction novel that touches on environmentalism and transhumanism. Join Rob and Lee as they struggle with this novel .

Mei Yaochen – Sacrificing for my Cat

How many cats have been immortalized in poetry that we are still reading a millenium later? At least one, Mr. Five White. Here, we stand with Mei Yaochen as he gives Mr. Five White the appropriate send off after his death.  My Translation Offering a Sacrifice to My Cat Since I got my cat, Mr. […]

Pu Liye – Chairman Xi’s Backside is Where My Gaze Lies

This week, we will really be the last poem in our short series on wierd poems. Today’s weird poem is one written by an editor at the Xinhua News Agency, China’s state-sponsored answer to Reuters or Bloomberg. Chairman Xi visited Xinhua and told them that the news needed to support the Party. During the visit, […]