Book reviews
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-05 09:55
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Love comes round
As Valentines' Day is approaching, Enjoy Reading Era, a Beijing-based cultural company, will release a collection of stories with the theme "Perhaps Love" at the end of this month. All of the texts are written by female writers in their 20s and 30s and discuss love in a modern society.
The collection includes novels which are popular on the Internet like Seven-year Itch, My Name, Your Surname and I Bet My Future on Marriage, which address love and marriage for young and middle-aged couples. For example, Seven-year Itch focuses on raising children and family financial management, while My Name, Your Surname talks about trust between couples.
Although people face troubles and challenges in their marriages, this collection encourages them to have faith in their love for each other and for themselves. "Marriage is like traveling. Just get rid of the stones that have got into your shoes, but never doubt you have chosen the right way," Gao Kefang, the author of Seven Year Itch, writes in the forward to the book.
Qiu Yijiao
A first for twitterers
The first Twitter novel has been published in China. Titled Besieged of the Post-80s, the novel is a collection of young author Shen Shiqi's posts at the website www.9911.com, since last October.
With each post less than 140 words, Shen updated the story each day, attracting a huge number of fans following the protagonist, a girl of the post-80s generation who seeks true love in the big city.
Shen, 26, is adapting the novel into a TV serial with Bian Limin, who wrote the scripts for popular TV serials like Meteor Garden.
Peng Lan, a professor of communications with Renmin University of China, says that compared with blogs, Twitter helps the writer use simpler, more straightforward and playful language.
Liu Jun
Anthology of Chinese literature
The six-volume Anthology of 20th Century Chinese Literature project, which is intended to introduce the country's classics in English, was launched last month.
It is organized by genres, including novels, novelettes and short stories, poems, drama, prose, literary theory and criticism. It features the works of writers, such as Lu Xun, Lao She, Wang Meng, Wang Anyi, Mo Yan, Yu Hua and Li Zehou.
Part of the International Publications of Chinese Classics project, supported by the General Administration of Press and Publications of China, the anthology will feature quality English translations, according to editor-in-chief, Wang Ning, professor of English and Comparative Literature, at Tsinghua University.
All the works will be revised or proofread by Anglo-American literary experts on the international advisory board before being published.
The anthology is expected to be completed by the end of 2012. Its publisher, Nanjing-based Yilin Press, is seeking collaboration with leading international English publishers.
Yang Guang