Reporter | Chen Jiajing
Edit | Yellow Moon
1 "The White Elephant in the Sea"
[Beauty] by Ling Lan
Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House 2022-01
As a Chinese-American writer, Ling Lan's stories always focus on Chinese immigrants in the new era. His collection of short stories published in 2020, "Offshore Flow", is based on the immigrant life of Chinese mainland international students in the United States for more than 20 years, with themes such as wandering in a foreign land, midlife crisis, and the identification and rebellion of the second generation of immigrants against their parents. The latest edition of White Elephant in the Sea, a total of nine novellas, is still written about the daily life of Chinese immigrants in the United States.
In this collection, the short story of the same name, "White Elephant in the Sea", tells the story of the emotional breakdown of parents from the perspective of the daughter; "Disappearing" and "Tourbillon" take different angles to show the throbbing, rebellion and growth of adolescents and young boys and girls; "Pingju" writes about mutual help and affection between Chinese people through a gathering of old friends during the epidemic... Together, these stories create a picture of the United States in the eyes of Chinese immigrants, allowing us to see the real life of this particular group.
Borges in the Diary, 1931-1989
[Argentina] by Adolf Bioi Casares / [Argentina] Daniel Martino, eds
Translated by Zheng Jingjing / Lu Kaitian / Xu Quan
East China Normal University Press 2022-01
The friendship between the famous Argentine writer Borges and Bioi Casares began in the 1930s. Although the two differed in many ways, they both had a fanatical interest in books, which quickly heated up their friendship and lasted for more than fifty years. During this period, they wrote detective novels and fantasy novels together, wrote film scripts and articles, wrote prefaces, and together they took the lead in compiling a series of essays and a wide range of anthologies, compiling literary classics, and running magazines together. It can be said that no one knows Borges better than Casares, both creatively and in life. Borges himself admitted: "There are no secrets in my life to him. ”
In 1947, Casares began to record in the form of a diary those "seemingly never-ending and passionate conversations" with Borges, and worked tirelessly for nearly forty years, eventually compiling the Borges in the Diary. "All I can do is tell me how I see Borges and how he got along with me, correct people's misconceptions about him, defend Borges, and especially the truth," Casares has said. In the book, Borges "talks like a close friend, laughing at all the things he himself once revered." These diaries also present readers with various anecdotes of the world literary scene at that time, and a glimpse of the stories behind literary creation.
How to Travel with Salmon
[Italian] Umberto Echo by Chen Ying translation
Shanghai Translation Publishing House 2022-03
This book is the most well-known work in the literary sketches of the Italian encyclopedic writer Umberto Echo. Some critics have said that reading Umberto Echo is a detoxification to our mental illness. He writes on a wide range of seemingly brainless topics such as football,, and coffee pots, which he writes about. As with the title "How to Travel with Salmon," readers will also see the writer's brilliant answers to the absurdities of modern life, such as how to buy gadgets on airplanes, how to talk about animals, how to avoid using mobile phones, how to get rid of "true", and so on.
This new edition is directly translated by Chen Ying from the Italian version, and ten new articles have been added, including "How to Become Popular", "How to Punish Spam Leakers", and "How to Survive in the Chaos of the Media". This witty guide to atypical life also exemplifies Echo's concept of writing: "I firmly believe that writing satire is not only reasonable, but also fundamentally my sacred duty. ”
Dresden: The Destruction and Rebirth of a City
Sinclair McKay by Zhang Zhuxin, translated
New Classic Culture | Wenhui Publishing House 2022-02
Dresden is the second largest city in eastern Germany after the capital Berlin, and is known as the "Florence on the Elbe" and the center of European civilization. Toward the end of World War II, on a day in February 1945, thousands of Allied bombers flew over the area, killing some 25,000 people and reducing Dresden to ruins overnight. The writer Kurt Vonnegut, one of the witnesses to the disaster, once said of the brutal black humor it presents: "It is costly, well planned, and in the end, meaningless. The bombing was carried out to end the war as soon as possible and to destroy the Nazi will to fight, and the British hierarchy, including Churchill, approved the plan, but even Churchill himself became suspicious of the necessity of air strikes afterwards. Who is responsible for the destruction of Dresden? The debate over this issue has not yet ended.
In recent years, Dresden's archives have struggled to collect testimonies and eyewitness accounts, from the planners of the attack to the pilots who carried out the bombing, from survivors of the fires to outsiders stunned by the level of destruction, and this inspiring public history program brings to light many lost memories. Based on a large number of historical materials and archives, this book reconstructs the whole process of the disaster, and fully discusses the moral controversy it caused, and writes about reconciliation and revival to this day. In the author's view, the story of Dresden is about both death and life, and it tells the infinite perseverance of the human spirit in the most special circumstances.
"The Perpetrator's Family"
[Japanese] Nobumoto Suzuki by Chen Lingxian translated
Spring tide | CITIC Publishing Group 2022-02
Many people believe that "I will not become the perpetrator", but not committing a crime does not mean that I will not become the family of the perpetrator. For example, if a parent of a child commits a crime, a husband whose spouse commits a crime, or a child whose wife, father or mother commits a crime, together with the person who committed the crime by a relative, there are many people involved in each case. The families of these perpetrators are often under great pressure from society, some of whom have lost their jobs, moved, been harassed or physically assaulted because their families have committed crimes, and are unable to live a normal life, and some have committed suicide because of excessive guilt. This book focuses on the families of perpetrators, which has rarely been discussed so far, and reveals to the public how they faced the crimes of their loved ones and how they spent their lives later in life.
The author of the book, Nobumoto Suzuki, who works for NHK Television, based on "Confessions of the Perpetrator's Family" broadcast on NHK Television in early April 2010, and added a large amount of information that was not edited into the program, including a large number of handwritten notes and interview reports of the perpetrator's family. He confessed that the interviews had repeatedly rebuked him: "Where do you put the victim's family?" In his view, the current Japanese society does lack assistance to the victims and the victims' families, and he has no intention of shouting for the rights of the perpetrator's family, but it is still meaningful to let the public understand the current situation of the latter - the tragedy that occurred to the perpetrator's family is ultimately due to the crime committed by the perpetrator, and conversely, if the perpetrator can think of this in advance, he may not commit a crime on impulse.
The Buzzword: The Misuse of Science by Postmodern Intellectuals
[Beauty] Alan Sokal / [than] Jean Bricmont by Cai Peijun translated
Qizhenguan Zhejiang University Press 2022-02
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a professor of physics at New York University in the United States, imitated contemporary theorists and wrote an article quoting obscure terms related to science, which was published in the Social Text, which was a journal that was a hallmark of the intellectual world at that time. Subsequently, Sokal himself exposed this absurdity of pretense but unclear language, and this prank caused a violent reaction in the academic community, known as the "Sokal Incident". "Funky Empty Talk" is a direct response to the incident between Sokal and another physics professor, Jean Bricmont. They cite a series of texts by postmodernist thinkers, pointing out sharply that some of the content is not only difficult to understand, but also exposes the author's ignorance, misunderstanding, and misuse of scientific concepts. In fact, the esoteric incomprehensibility does not necessarily have depth, and vaguely applying scientific models to discuss human and social issues is not helpful to the reader.
Sokal and Bricmont examine and critique many of the famous contemporary French thinkers, including Lacan, Christia, Baudrillard, delEuze, who are admired by readers. In Sokal's view, these thinkers, who know little about many basic scientific concepts, use the mask of erudition to confuse readers who do not understand science, and their extensive use of scientific terms reflects a "scientism" mentality. Contemporary humanistic sociologists seem to have an ambiguous psychology toward science: on the one hand, they criticize science as a hegemon; on the other hand, they strive to qualify for "science" for their own research. This book will help readers gain insight into the "battle of the century" between postmodernism and scientism, and re-examine the ideological trend of postmodernism.
Hockney on Photography
David Hockney / Paul Joyce by Luan Zhichao, translated
Republic of | Beijing Daily Press 2021-11
The first edition of the book, introduced to China in 1994, is the only book devoted to photography and video art by British artist David Hockney, including a conversation with his friend Paul Joyce about photography. Since the 1980s, Hockney has created a series of photographic collages called "Joiners", which delves into the relationship between painting and photography in terms of visual representation, and the possibilities of photography as art. Nevertheless, his work and ideas have not been given sufficient attention in more than three decades of practice. This updated edition, which has been going on for many years, will fill the gaps for readers who are interested in Hockney or photography.
In fact, as early as the early 1970s, Hockney began experimenting with multiple images and "cut-ups," but it wasn't until he discovered polaroid cameras that his years of practice were thickened. At the time, people believed that the camera was a machine that could record objective facts, and artists were eager to use photography to present the real side of things, but "real" was exactly the concept that Hockney wanted to overturn. In his view, the camera is an expansion of the artist's drawing board, and the photographic works he has created since then are essentially a struggle against the established "realism" concept of photography, and with its way of viewing as a reference, our traditional understanding of viewing may be completely wrong. Valuablely, the central theme of this dialogue book is not limited to photography, but in Hockney's 17-year exchange with Joyce, it became a widely written collection of essays that explored the artist's relationship with the world in which he lived.
Where do animals go?
[English] James Cheshire / [English] Oliver Ubetti translated by Tan Lingdi
After the wave | Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House 2021-12
In the early days, biologists looked for animals' footprints, nests, and feces in the wild; today, with the help of new technology, animal traces are not only printed on the ground, but also printed on the silicon chips of computers. Illustrated and illustrated, this book is a major breakthrough in the revolution in animal tracking technology, designed to present the reader with cutting-edge research on land, sky, and sea. Most of the stories talk about "tagging," in which scientists put a device on an animal. With the rise of mobile communications technology and the miniaturization of computers, these devices can collect billions of bytes of behavioral, physiological, and environmental data: from the vulture's soaring and hovering trajectory, to the temperature of the sea along the Antarctic coast, to the flight of bumblebees, allowing us to see the natural world in ways we have never seen before.
More and more wildlife researchers are working with engineers to develop new ways to study animals remotely, and the convergence of ecology and technology is also engaging people from more disciplines in the conversation about animal protection. Part of the reason for this is that scientists today collect so much data that it's impossible to process it alone, which requires multinational, interdisciplinary teams to help them make the most of animal data. The book is the result of a collaboration between a geographer and a designer who created these stories and maps using trans-submarine fiber optic cables that may inspire wildlife tracking and conservation professionals, relevant data analysts, and visual analytics engineers.