Shanghai-born Dr. Liliane Willens will be speaking twice this weekend about her newly published book, Stateless in Shanghai at several venues around the city. But first, a word of explanation about what "stateless in Shanghai" really means:
Shanghai-born Dr. Liliane Willens will be speaking twice this weekend about her newly published book, Stateless in Shanghai at several venues around the city. But first, a word of explanation about what "stateless in Shanghai" really means:
We've always marveled at the immense chasm between the Chinese book market and the rest of the world. Of course, issues of translation and appeal abroad have kept the market pretty domestic, but that seems to be changing slowly. Chinageeks makes a great point in response to the coverage of Frankfurt Book Fair: it seems that the only interest the west can muster towards Chinese literature is when the book or author carries some sort of scandal with it, leaving the vast majority of authors and books unnoticed. There's a lack of foreign awareness of books that split the difference between banned-in-China and sterilized-by-censorship that leaves a big old lacuna where books by talented Chinese authors should be.
Zachary Mexico's first book, China Underground, just came out this month. It's an edgy look at margins of modern China—and it's a real page-turner. Mexico mixes it up with the masses, returning with sixteen tales of unique individuals "trying to figure out what's going on, trying to carve a place out for themselves in the new China."