This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Rebecca Kuang (who writes under the name R.F. Kuang), the author of the best-selling historical fantasy novel Babel. Set in the 1830s in England, the novel’s Chinese-born protagonist sets out to prevent a war with China over the opium trade. It’s a novel about the industrial revolution, labor activism, revolution, and — surprisingly — language, etymology, and translation.
2:28 – On Rebecca's own connections to China and her anxieties about losing the Chinese language
8:27 – What historical insights Rebecca hoped her readers would take away from Babel
14:37 – Parallels between the U.K. of the early 19th century and the U.S. of the early 21st
20:26 – Refections on revolution and revolutionaries
25:48 – Silver working: the magic system in Babel and its relation to language
30:37 – Issues with translation theory presented in the book
38:04 – How Rebecca’s background in debate influenced her writing style
45:03 – Rebecca's forthcoming novel Yellowface
A transcript of this podcast will be available soon at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
Rebecca: The film Banshees of Inisherin and other works by its director, Martin McDonagh, including the dark comedy In Bruges (2008).
Kaiser: The new novel by Cormac McCarthy The Passenger, and a review of it by James Wood in The New Yorker.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Carter Center's survey on Chinese perception, with Yawei Liu and Michael Cerny
Peter Hessler live at the NEXTChina 2021 Conference in New York
Psychologist George Hu of the United Family Mental Health Network on mental health in China
The worldview of Wang Huning, the Party's leading theoretician
Bonus Episode: Introducing the China Sports Insider Podcast
It's Complicated: Getting our heads around a changing China
Did tariffs make a difference in Trump’s trade war?
How Taiwan propelled China’s economic rise, with Shelley Rigger
Can China meet its ambitious emissions targets?
How the Chinese state handles labor unrest, with Manfred Elfstrom
The benefits of engagement with China, defined: An audit of the S&ED
What's the deal with the Red New Deal?
The state of the field: U.S. China programs, with Rosie Levine and Jan Berris of the NCUSCR
The paradox of vast corruption and fast growth in China's "Gilded Age"
Harvard’s William Overholt on Esquel, cotton sanctions, and forced Uyghur labor
Historian Adam Tooze on why China’s modern history should matter to Americans
Peter Martin on ‘China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’
A conversation with Ambassador Huang Ping, consul general of the P.R.C.'s New York Consulate
Reflecting on China's poverty reduction with Bill Bikales
A data-driven dive into Chinese politics, with Stanford's Yiqing Xu
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free