In his livestream show, Dong managed to relate Gurnah's life and writing to the numerous Chinese readers living and working far from home — Dong being one of them — who not only feel uneasy about fitting into their new environment, mostly in big cities, but also find it difficult to return home.
After all, as Gurnah says: "Homesickness is not about being away from home. It's about losing home."
When he visited Beijing's Jingshan Park on March 11, where he was able to get a bird's-eye view of the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City, he showed interest in the lives of feudal emperors and asked about what they did and how they lived in the palace, as well as about royal family relationships, according to a report in Sanlian Lifeweek magazine.
Walking in the hutong alleys around Baita Temple, he was curious about life in siheyuan (courtyard dwellings), which turns out to share similarities with what he writes about in Afterlives and Gravel Heart, according to the magazine.
Coincidentally, Huang has been particularly touched by the intertwined family relationships described in Gurnah's work, which are intermingled with humor and tragicomic expressions. The tensions and resolution between members of big families can easily find resonance in Chinese family structures.
Even Gurnah's career choice — treading the fertile soil of literature both to study and write his own works, rather than being a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer — finds a counterpart in the household story of luminary modern writer Lu Xun's choice to give up medicine and turn to writing to inspire his countrymen.
Gurnah expressed hope that more Chinese literature will be translated and introduced to the British book market.
It's been a while since world-famous writers like Ian McEwan, Svetlana Alexievich and Amos Oz visited China. Gurnah is the first Nobel literature laureate to have visited China since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Huang says that she and her colleagues appreciate Gurnah's empathy and consideration during his visit and look forward to more foreign writers coming to meet their Chinese readers in person.
