Encounters with Chinese Writers
Ebook
Chinese and U.S. writers try to bridge the culture gap in this “splendid little book” from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (The Washington Post Book World).
Winner of the New England Book Show Award
It’s been a pilgrimage for Annie Dillard: from Tinker Creek to the Galapagos Islands, the high Arctic, the Pacific Northwest, the Amazon Jungle—and now, China. This informative narrative is full of fascinating people: Chinese people, mostly writers, who encounter American writers in various bizarre circumstances in both China and the U.S. There is a toasting scene at a Chinese banquet; a portrait of a bitter, flirtatious diplomat at a dance hall; a formal meeting with Chinese writers; a conversation with an American businessman in a hotel lobby; an evening with long-suffering Chinese intellectuals in their house; a scene in the Beijing foreigners’ compound with an excited European journalist; and a scene of unwarranted hilarity at the Beijing Library. In the U.S., there is Allen Ginsberg having a bewildering conversation in Disneyland with a Chinese journalist; there is the lovely and controversial writer Zhang Jie suiting abrupt mood changes to a variety of actions; and there is the fiercely spirited Jiange Zilong singing in a Connecticut dining room, eyes closed. These are real stories told with a warm and lively humor, with a keen eye for paradox, and with fresh insight into the human drama.
“Engrossing and thought-provoking.” —Irving Yucheng Lo, author of Sunflower Splendor
‘Keenly observed, often comic encounters.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Dillard distills her encounters in lively anecdotes, sketches and vignettes. Her charm lies in the simplicity of her storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly
"Dillard distills her encounters in lively anecdotes, sketches and vignettes. Her charm lies in the simplicity of her storytelling, the way she conveys in sidelong hints the deep love the older Chinese writers . . . still feel for their country, and communicates her sense of the universals underlying cultural differences" —Publishers Weekly
"Engrossing and thought-provoking." —Irving Lo
"A splendid little book." —Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post Book World
"Keenly observed, often comic encounters" —Andrea Barnet, The New York Times Book Review
- Title: Encounters with Chinese Writers
- Author: Annie Dillard
- Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780819571991, 9780819561565, 0819561568, 0819571997
- Resource ID: LLS:9780819571991
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-03T19:54:03Z
ANNIE FINCH is a professor of English and director of the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of five books of poetry, including Calendars.