Paper Republic Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paper Republic
Published: 2022-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

HAN DONG

韩东 (1961– )

When Han Dong’s parents were banished to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, they took their eight-year-old son with them. He did not return to the city until the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, and this rural childhood later became the source of inspiration for many of his works. In 1982, he graduated from Shandong University with a degree in philosophy, and subsequently taught in Xi’an and Nanjing before becoming an independent writer in 1993.

Han Dong took up poetry in his university days and began publishing in the 1980s. In 1985, he co-founded the poetry magazine Them (他们 ), which became an important platform for avant-garde ‘Third Generation Poets’ (第三代诗人 ). In 1998, he and the writer and director Zhu Wen (朱文 ) challenged the literary establishment by publishing the (in)famous ‘Fracture Questionnaire’ (断裂问卷 ), which contained negative opinions of established literary figures written by fifty-six writers. This came to be seen as a young generation’s call for a new direction in literature.

Han Dong is best-known and has been most influential as a poet. However, he also has a considerable corpus of essays, short stories, novellas and full-length novels, the first of was Banished (扎根 , 2003). This was followed by The Metamorphosis of the Sent-down Youth (知青变形记 , not translated) and Small Town Handsome Guy (小城好汉之英特迈往 , not translated), all of which deal with the experience of youths sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution.

Han Dong places a particular emphasis on colloquial (民间 ) language, and his fiction and essays, like his poetry, are noted for being deliberately plain, spare and precise, as well as wryly humorous.

Selected works

novels

Zha Gen 扎根 (2003) translated by Nicky Harman as Banished! A Novel (UH Press, 2009)

novellas, short stories and essays

Chuang Jing 窗景 . Translated by Nicky Harman as ‘View from a Window’ (Read Paper Republic [https://paper-republic.org/pubs/read/], 2020)

You You Lu Ming 呦呦鹿鸣 . Translated by Nicky Harman as ‘The Cry of the Deer’, (Read Paper Republic, 2016)

Huahua Chuan Qi 花花传奇 . Translated by Nicky Harman as A Tabby Cat’s Tale (Frisch, 2016)

Ci Dai Yi Si 此呆已死 . Translated by Nicky Harman as ‘This Moron is Dead’ in Shi Cheng: Stories from Urban China (Comma Press, 2012)

Zhan Xin Shi 崭新世 . Translated by Helen Wang and Nicky Harman as ‘Brand-New World’ (Paper Republic, 2012)

Jia Fa 假发 . Translated by Philip Hand as ‘The Wig’ (Granta, October 2012)

poetry collection

Lai zi Da Lian de Dianhua 来自大连的电话 . A Phone Call from Dalian (Zephyr Press, 2012). Various translators.

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