China Institute

Yu Hua (1960-), the author of To Live, Brothers, and China in Ten Words, is one of China’s best-known living authors. It is thirty years since he first began to make an impact on the Chinese literary world and twenty years since his first collection of stories in English translation was published; now is a good moment to take stock of the factors shaping the reception of his work by a Western audience. In this lecture I talk about my collaborations with Yu Hua, the challenges I have encountered when translating his stories and essays, and my role as an intermediary between author and editor. Read more