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Julia Lovell on Chutzpah
Chutzpah Published 2012-02-23 02:32IN THE FORTHCOMING march issue of Prospect, a monthly British magazine with a circulation of more than 30,000 copies, Julia Lovell, a lecturer in modern Chinese history and literature at the University of London and the author of “The Opium War”, writes about the Chinese literary scene which "became even more diverse". IN AN ARTICLE titled "The key to China", she points out that overwhelmed anglo...
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A Yi: The Curse
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-09 15:30A chicken can disappear as easily as an insect.The owner of this particular missing chicken, Zhong Yonglian, had deduced thather neighbour Wu Haiying was responsible for the disappearance. There were twopieces of incriminating evidence: first, a trail of claw-prints ending in Wu’s vegetable garden;second, her house smelled of stew. Wu Haiying was not a woman you wanted to geton the wrong side of...
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Li Rui: The Annals of Dijiahe
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-09 15:25Dijiahe is the village I was sent to in that year.It was a recent telephone call that suddenly calledforth the impulse to record something of Dijiahe. The call came from Run Yuezi,my landlord during my time in the countryside, who called to tell me that hisgranddaughter Yingying was about to get married. He added in passing that thenew village buildings had been completed and that his two sons, P...
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Gu Qian: Dreamworlds
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-09 15:19In the afternoon, heavy rainclouds began to fillthe sky. Zhou Ji lay down on the bed, switched on thereading lamp and picked up a book. Cloudy days like this one made him feeldowncast and unable to muster the energy to do anything. After reading for awhile he was overcome by tiredness, so he switched off the light and driftedoff to sleep. He had not expected his nap to be so delicious; it...
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Ou Ning: Agrarian Utopia - An Artistic Experiment in Chiang Mai
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-09 15:12Agrarian Utopia: An Artistic Experiment in Chiang MaiKamin Lertchaiprasert was his full name in Thai. That family name was far too long for me to remember, so I just called him by his first name. With a long ponytail and goatee, black shirt, shorts, and skin that had been exposed to the semi-tropical sunshine, he looked at 46 much like some fellow villagers I remembered from when I was little – ...
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Mang Ke: A Year Has Only Sixty Days ( Selections )
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-04 10:581The rattle of wind-blown bones went on all night At dawn it finally ceased While hungry birds pecked at the tin roof A cuckoo’s cry proves there is stillness here People go on living their livesLiving things are still filled with life force Why do the dead keep sighing after death?What I’d rather not remember keeps coming to mind Forgotten things are the hardest to forget Do the dead realize they...
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Jimbut Jun Feng: To live in a narrative, no. 46
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-04 10:47To live in a narrative, no. 46The cold air reflects an eveningin Shanghai or in Nørrebro. Broken instants and wisps of rain an exchange of smiles between two strangers waiting for a busI trace my thoughts back to a hole in which I once sat and lit a fireYes, once I was a vagabond and got help on the way hereA forged passport, an invented nameone more name The day becomes nightMy yearning for home ...
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Kun Kun: But Some of Us are Looking at the Stars
Chutzpah Published 2011-11-04 11:29The wild nature of a realist The moment that someone decides to write, if it’s trulymiraculous, is often likened to a “flash of inspiration”. Haruki Murakami’sdescription of such a moment is a classic example, and whether true or not, ithas a certain moving patina. He said: I was watching a baseball game when Idecided to start writing; the team I support hit a home run and the ball flewfast and hi...
