In the seventy sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are hitting Zero (零 / líng). Joining me on deck are The Hugonauts, as we navigate a dystopian world that might be a postmodern riff on 1984 by amorphous author Huang Fan, or might be something far more sinister. All seasoned rebels know: sometimes you crash the system, and sometimes the system crashes you.

In the seventy fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are surviving The Curse (杨村的一则诅咒 / yáng cūn de yī zé zǔzhòu). Investigating on the scene is literary Sinologist Jeffrey Kinkley. Is this a tale of a backfiring curse, or a backfiring society? For realist writing to penetrate our often nightmarish world and scratch The Real, does it have to get weird first? Detective K and I are on the case. Don’t expect comforting answers.

In the seventy fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are dallying with The Fox Spirit of Bluestone Mountain (狐狸緣全傳 / yúlí yuán quánchuán). Arriving just in time to save us from the spirit’s wiles is translator Timothy Gouldthorp. Straighten your tails, grab a Taoist 不可以色色 bonk stick, and line up for battle as the creatures of the forest (rabbits included) take on the gods!

In the seventy third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast, Eero Suoranta and I are saying Farewell, Doraemon (再见，哆啦A梦 / zàijiàn, duōlaAmèng). This is the second time a story by A Que has appeared on the show, and I feel that I now know the writer’s soul: tender in spirit, thoughtful in action, of limpid and eerie atmosphere, and shy about everything except postmodern intertextual showmanship. Pass with us through a loop in time hidden in a lonely river to drown in nostalgia (from...

In the seventy second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast I’m facing down a bleak reality: My Country Does Not Dream (韩松 我的祖国不要做梦 / wǒde zǔguó bù zuò mèng). But I’m not doing it alone! The London Chinese Science Fiction Group have deployed a team of Han Song aficionados (and one critic) to console my exhausted brain as the daytime hours fall away, revealing a sombre somnambulant city behind the city: Beijing.

In the seventy first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are stepping into A Looking Glass World (单筒望远镜 / Dāntǒng Wàngyuǎnjìng). This is our second encounter with Tianjin’s bard Feng Jicai, and our first (sort of!) with his publisher-in-translation, Daniel Li of Sinoist Books.

In the seventieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are taking part in The Adventures of Ma Suzhen (马素贞复仇记 / Mǎ Sùzhēn Fùchóu Jì). From the backwaters of Shandong to the criminal dens of Shanghai, stout man of Oxford Paul Bevan leads me on a quest for vengeance that is little known in the west, yet part of an entire extended universe of Sinophone multimedia culture.

In the sixty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are riding with The Women, the Camels, and the Dholes, one of the stories contained within the Selected Stories of Xue Mo (雪漠小说精选 / Xuěmò Xiǎoshuō Jīngxuǎn). Two women are joining me on this trek: audiobook producer Nicola Clayton and voice actor Sarah Lam. In this tale we get material, we get Buddhist, we get into self-help, we get really close to death, and we take up a rifle loaded with...weirdly sentient bullets. It...

In the sixty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are being Raised by Wolves (狼養 / Láng Yǎng De), just like Amang and her translator Steve Bradbury. Revel in trash. Bound down a mountain. Take a ride on a nuclear sub. Argue furiously in favour of your preferred adverb. Do all these things, and you will channel the spirit of the wolf.

In the sixty seventh of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are going Faraway (遠方 / Yuǎnfāng) with Lo Yi-Chin. Lighting lamps with me as time, memory, and family dissolve into an indistinct fog is the writer, translator, and mega-linguist Jenna Tang.

In the 66th episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are adrift in Hong Kong Nights (香港之夜 / Xiāng Gǎng Zhīyè), as fleetingly recollected by Sichuan’s long-surviving left-anarchist writer, Ba Jin. Joining me in the constellations is fellow Sino-lit podcaster Luo Tianqi – here to talk about revolution, regret, and responsibility. Grab a seat on deck, comrade, brush up on your Bakunin, and hold on to your fleeting earthly identity as sights become sounds, and sounds become sights.

In the sixty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we swathing ourselves in The Invisibility Cloak (隐身衣 / Yǐnshēn Yī). Languishing with me in the peace and pain of relative obscurity are Giray Fidan and Rauno Sainio, two translators of the book’s author: Ge Fei, imperceptible fabulist and three-time subject of the show. I still haven’t figured him out, and I’m sure he’d be glad of it.

In the 64th episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we bear witness to the Coming of the Light (开光 / Kāiguāng), penned by the shaman-consulting Google graduate himself; it’s Stan, it’s the man, it’s Chen Qiufan. And hark – what’s this? Waves and photons in the shape of noted publisher Francesco Verso surge from the underscreen to puncture my cybernetic solipsism, but will our agile enterprise decode the universe before its unravelling, or are all digital startups nought but the...

In the sixty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are Dancing Through Red Dust (原谅我红尘颠倒 / Yuánliàng Wǒ Hóngchén Diāndǎo), a nightmarish lurch through the PRC (il)legal system dreamed up by the Shandong webnovelist-turned-dissident Murong Xuecun. Presiding over the court with me is Murong’s esteemed translator, editor, publisher, and friend: Harvey Tomlinson. What have judges to do with the Jinpingmei? What has loss to do with licentiousness? How does Buddhism end up parceled in...

In the sixty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are setting sail on The Wandering Earth (流浪地球 / Liúlàng Dìqiú), drawn up and captained by Liu Cixin himself. Calling into the show from the Peruvian Engine Bunker is Jairo Morales. We get deep into postnationalism, censorship, cultural transmission, and the sublime spectacle of the utter annihilation of our planet’s fragile surface. Goodbye solarpunk, hello solardoom.

In the sixty first episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction we are opening The Book of Sins (冒犯书 / Màofàn Shū), by edgelord-with-a-conscience Chen Xiwo. Playing common-sense counterpoint to my doom-laden interpretations of the text is its translator, Nicky Harman. Here’s what we deal with: pain, incest, and the political uses of shock, horror, and offensiveness. Are you sure about this? You can delete this episode now. Do you choose to hit play?

In the sixtieth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast solving the case of Second Sister (網內人 / Wǎng Nèi Rén), penned by crime connoisseur Chan Ho-kei. Logged on with guest-level access and ready to follow the trail wherever it leads is 3-time visitor to the show Michelle Deeter. In the events that follow we hack into moral frameworks, digital archives, memory glitches, and urban navigation. Switch off your VPN (we’re in Hong Kong this time), take a quick glance over your shoulder,...

In the fifty ninth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are talking with someone who is More Than One Child (隐形小孩 / Yǐnxíng Xiǎohái), a woman as friendly as she is fearless: Shen Yang. She’s here on this episode, and so is her translator, friend-of-the-pod, and returnee guest Nicky Harman. The book is forthcoming from the excellent publisher Balestier Press.

In the fifty eighth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are picking Flower of the Other Shore (彼岸花 / Bǐ'àn Huā), a romantic(!) zombie short story by A Que. Here to help me find sympathy for the undead is the story’s translator, Xueting Christine Ni. The story will feature in her anthology of translated Chinese sci-fi: Sinopticon.

In the fifty seventh episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are suffering from Home Sickness (匿逃者 / Nì Táo Zhě), a short story collection by Chih-ying Lay. Here to ease this terrible affliction is the book’s translator: reformed Buddhist and agile herper Darryl Sterck.

In the fifty sixth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are introducing ourselves to the Taipei People (台北人 / Táiběi Rén), as written by Pai Hsien-yung. Joining me to question the merits of nostalgia and muse aimlessly on umbrellas and the like is a genuine Taibei ren; the effortlessly hip Nadia Ho.

In the fifty fifth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are meeting The Man with the Compound Eyes (复眼人 / Fùyǎn Rén). Brace yourself for the impact of an ecological, apocalyptic, and internationalist vortex of literary weirdness. Joining me to weather this storm at the limits of anthropoid cognition is Sinophone-sci-fi-studier Cara Healey.

In the fifty fourth episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we thumbing through the Notes of a Crocodile (鳄鱼手记 / Èyú Shǒujì). Joining me on the lookout for the shy and elusive reptiloid is Conor Stuart.

In the fifty third episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are peeling back The Membranes (膜 / Mó). Joining me at their respective computer terminals in the ocean floor biodome are its author Chi Ta-wei and translator Ari Larissa Heinrich.

In the fifty second episode of The Translated Chinese Fiction Podcast we are departing from the Tang Empire on a haphazard Journey to the West (西游记 / Xī Yóu Jì). Teaching me the transformations is Julia Lovell, translator of JttW’s latest, extremely readable English translation.