Author: China Channel

The Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel is an online digest of writing on and from China for Sinophiles and the Sinocurious.
Staff Picks

Christmas Staff Picks

China Channel

Editor’s note: Dragging your feet on Christmas shopping? You still have two weeks to stuff those stockings with some of our eclectic, China-themed recommendations – food for thought to match any turkey feast.

Paul French: Coffee-table China photography books

Christmas – guests are coming, and it’s time to refresh that tired looking pile on the coffee table. What a vintage year for coffee table books with a Chinese angle. Top of the pile should be Paul Fonoff’s beautiful Chinese Movie Magazines: From Charlie Chaplin to Chairman Mao 1921-1951 (Thames & Hudson). A gargantuan Technicolor feast of Shanghai starlets and stylish movie posters. Then, like the thick slice of juicy turkey in a Boxing Day sandwich, Sunset Survivors (Blacksmith Books) by Lindsay Varty and Gary Jones, documenting Hong Kong’s last traditional tradesmen and women.

Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: Reciprocity

China Channel

A response to our review of The Reciprocal Translation Project

To the Editors:

Eleanor Goodman’s review of The Reciprocal Translation Project, edited by Sun Dong and myself, attempts to critique non-standard translation in terms of conventional translation ideals. As such, the review misses the point of concepts derived from new poetry that change how we look at ourselves, each other and our world, including translations between languages.

General

Support new Chinese translations on Patreon

China Channel

> Click here to give!

A quick note from us at the China Channel, about a new translation project we're looking to start. Right now, China is going through a nonfiction golden age. Every day, essays, articles, narrative nonfiction and personal memoir is published that puts the world's fastest rising country in a new perspective – told by the voices that are creating China's story, not by foreign observers or anyone else writing in English. Right now, those valuable voices are only read by Chinese speakers but are lost to readers abroad, who are only getting a partial view of one of the most important nations in the world.

We want to change that. If you support our new Patreon drive, from as little as $1 a month, we will be able to start commissioning new translations from Chinese, to widen your horizon. That means everything from migrant memoir to Chinese #metoo reflections, from literary criticism to political screed, selected in partnership with Tabitha Speelman's Changpian newsletter. Good translation takes time, effort and money, but we aim to publish a new translation every month if we hit just $300 in monthly funding. However little you give, from $1 to $10 or more, will help bring material that would otherwise remain inaccessible onto your reading list.

Miscellany

Our Top Ten Most Read Essays

China Channel

The China Channel is entering its second year with a reminder of our top posts

The Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel launched a little under a year ago, on September 25th 2017 – the anniversary of the birth of Lu Xun, whose iconoclasm and cultural interests we celebrated and identified with. Since then, we have published 215 posts, with praise from various quarters and top monthly readers in the tens of thousands. We’re taking September and the beginning of the new school year as our premature anniversary, to announce that we have continued funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, with additional support from the US-China Long Institute at UC Irvine, for another year of operations.

Thank you for reading us, and below are the top ten most read essays on the China Channel from the last year. We look forward to the year ahead, and have some wonderful reviews, essays and more lined up, after a week's break to mark the end of summer.

Listicles

20 Best China Books

China Channel

Essential reading for your China library, in four categories

Third and last in our mini-series of summer listicles, after 12 must-read Chinese fiction books, and 12 must-watch Chinese films, comes this master list: 20 of the best general books about or from China. We are selective, of course, and these recommendations are far from comprehensive. We’ve also split it into four lists of five: books on contemporary China, books on Chinese history, books from Chinese voices, and Chinese classics.

We hope this is useful as an open sesame for new China watchers, or to encourage old hands to plug holes in their bookshelf. The lists are designed as all you need to pack your bag or Kindle with to grasp that aspect or perspective of China, without being overwhelming. Naturally, we have missed out a plethora of wonderful books. But, we hope, this is only the beginning of your reading.