Ep 99 - Mo Yan and The Republic of Wine with Dylan Levi King, Michelle Deeter, and Martin Winter

‘I wrote the asinine words ‘liquor is literature’ and ‘people who are strangers to liquor are incapable of talking about literature’ when I was good and drunk, and you must not take them to heart.’

In the ninety ninth episode of the Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we’re taking a lengthy holiday with Mo Yan in The Republic of Wine, so get your visa stamped and your baijiu in hand. This time there are two discussions. First, sober, with returnees Dylan Levi King and Michelle Deeter. Then, drunk with DLK and poet/translator Martin Winter. Listen all the way through, comrade, to hear two of us curse then proclaim our love for a prominent figure in the field. This is the penultimate episode; the time for tomfoolery is almost over.

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// NEWS ITEMS //

• Tongueless by Lau Yee-wa
• Helen Wang interviews Sabina Knight
• Mourning a Breast by Xi Xi

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// WORD OF THE DAY //

(酒量 – jiǔliàng – capacity for liquor)

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// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

• The Diary of a Madman - Lu Xun
• Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh // (plus her stories set in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Jiangsu)
• UK's Eat Out to Help Out & Japanese govt’s Sake Viva! drive
• Cannibalism in Joyce and Mo Yan
• Postsocialism and Cultural Politics