In 2011, the House of Literature in Oslo, Norway, wishes to promote Chinese literature by hosting a thematic week where we are inviting 15 Chinese authors and intellectuals to Oslo. During the week, we will have author interviews and readings for a general audience. There will also be lectures, children’s events and professional seminars, on topics taken from Chinese literature and culture.

Understanding what China, and the world, looks like from China is one of the central topics for the week. In order to emphasise the breadth of Chinese literature and society the guest list contains both translated and not translated authors; authors that are well-known internationally and authors mostly read in China.

While China’s global influence is rapidly growing, it is also becoming increasingly clear that the world looks differently from a Chinese point of view than it does seen from Norway or the West. Art and literature can be a good point of entry to our knowledge of the Chinese way of thinking and the everyday life of its people. By arranging a Chinese week, the House of Literature in Oslo wishes to contribute to increasing our knowledge of one of the world’s largest and most powerful countries.

The House of Literature in Oslo continually works to focus on non-Norwegian countries and authors, and especially on literature from non-western continents. Our goal is to concentrate on one geographical area each year.
The Chinese week is financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Arts Council Norway.
 

PROGRAMME NOVEMBER 14-20 

MONDAY THE 14TH OF NOVEMBER
5pm: China’s Intellectual Tradition
Opening lecture by Professor Wang Hui
Wang Hui 汪晖 (born 1959) is Professor of Chinese intellectual tradition at the University of Tsinghua, Beijing. He has previously been named one of the world’s top 100 public intellectuals by the American magazine Foreign Policy and has been a guest lecturer at universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and Bologna.
Language: English

7pm: Long life
Lecture by Halvor Eifring on literature classics
Four novels of the Ming and the Qing dynasties are considered to be amongst the major classic novels of Chinese literature. While the Norwegian Great Four today are only found in the school curriculum, Chinese literature classics are still popular in China where they are both read and studied. Professor Halvor Eifring will give an introduction to the most important Chinese classics.
Language: Norwegian

7.30pm: Putting a Modern Face on the Classics
Discussion with Xi Chuan and Cheng Yongxin
Traces of this classic literature are also still to be found in today’s contemporary Chinese literature. What is the relationship between the classics and today’s writers, and do the latter use them in their own literature? Xi Chuan and Cheng Yongxin discuss their relationship to classic literature.
Language: Norwegian (with translation from Chinese)

9pm: Film Screening: Still Life
Org.: Sanxia Haoren
Director: Jia Zhang-Ke
Year: 2006

TUESDAY THE 15TH OF NOVEMBER
10am-2pm: Modern China: migration, economic growth and social change
Seminar with Leslie Chang, Wang Hui and Michael Dutton
Readings by Xu Zechen
Over the past ten years, China has undergone a socio-economic development unmatched in the world’s history. This development has also lead to huge changes in China’s demography and we are now witnessing labour migration within the borders of China of an unprecedented scale anywhere in the world. More people have moved from their villages to the cities to find work in China over the last ten years than during the entire European migration to America.
Language: English

6pm: Chinese Language and Literature History
Lecture by Harald Bøckman
Approximately twenty percent of the world’s population uses Chinese as a written language. How is the Chinese language structured and what can it tell us about the Chinese literature and society? Sinologist Harald Bøckman gives us an introduction to the Chinese written language and literature history.
Language: Norwegian

7pm: Short readings in the bookshop from Murong Xuecun and Cheng Yongxin
Language: Chinese, with translation

8pm: Women in Chinese fiction
Stage conversations with Hong Ying, Mian Mian and Lan Lan
From concubines in the underworld and the mafia of Shanghai, via poetic feelings to modern underground novels about prostitution, drugs and rock: Hong Ying, Lan Lan and Mian Mian present us with three different stories of women’s life in China. Meet the writers in conversations with Norwegian writer Brit Bildøen.
Language: Norwegian (with translation from Chinese)

9p.30m: Film Screening: Shiny Stars, Rusty Red
Elisabeth Sjaastad introduces the film
Year: 2006

WEDNESDAY THE 16TH OF NOVEMBER
10am-2pm: Mao in the 20th century world
Seminar with Rebecca Karl, Wang Hui and Michael Dutton
Rebecca Karl recently published the critically acclaimed book Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: a Concise History. She opens this seminar, where Professor Wang Hui, Tsinghua Universtiy and MIchael Dutton also participates.
Moderator: Hans Jørgen Gåsemyr.
Language: English

5pm: Factory Girls: National Migration and Today’s Working-Class in China
Stage conversation with journalist Leslie T. Chang
Leslie T. Chang is a Chinese-American journalist and China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. In 2008, she published the critically acclaimed best-seller Factory Girls which depicts the life of female migrant workers in today’s new China. In conversation with journalist Inger Bentzrud.
Language: English

6pm: Short readings in the bookshop from Hong Ying and Lan Lan
Language: Chinese, with translation

6.30pm: The road to Tiananmen Square
Lecture by Hong Ying
Introduction by translator and author Maiping Chen.
Language: English and Chinese (with simultaneous translation)

8pm: Urban literature and Chinese science-fiction
Stage conversations with Han Song, Mian Mian, Murong Xuecun and Xu Zechen
Social changes in modern China are also reflected in literary works and the so-called “urban literature” is gaining more and more followers. We meet up with four young writers from both Shanghai and Beijing, who use different ways to depict modern big city life in China.
Language: Norwegian (with translation from Chinese)

9.30 pm:Film Screening: Chungking Express
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Year: 1994

THURSDAY 17TH OF NOVEMBER
10am-2pm: The Chinese Literary Scene and the Chinese Publishing World
Seminar with Chinese writers and editors
Chinese literature is on the radar of most Western publishers, but to familiarize oneself with another country’s literature can prove challenging; as a result, a lot of new exciting Chinese literary works never reach Western readers. What is happening in the world of Chinese contemporary literature and how does the Chinese book industry work? Chinese writers, publishers and magazine editors residing in China inform and tell us about the Chinese literary scene.
Moderated by Eric Abrahamsen (Paper Republic).
Language: English and Chinese (with simultaneous translation)

6pm: Chinese Contemporary Literature
Lecture by Zou Zou and Cheng Yongxin
Which books are the most popular and the most critically acclaimed in China? Who are considered to be today’s greatest writers and what do they write about? What do people in China read? This lecture gives us a sneak-peak into Chinese contemporary literature.
Language: English and Chinese (with simultaneous translation)

7pm: Short readings in the bookshop from Annie Baobei and Xu Zechen
Language: Chinese, with translation

8pm: Chinese Contemporary Poetry
Glimpse of the World’s Oldest Poetry Tradition
Stage conversations with Lan Lan and Xi Chuan
From early times, poetry played a far greater role in China than it did in the West. Even under the Zhou dynasty, more than a thousand years before the Western Christian Era, important political statements were often phrased as verses of famous poems. What does contemporary poetry look like in a country with such a long poetic tradition? Harald Bøckman talk with two poets about their works and the current trends in modern Chinese poetry.
Language: Norwegian (with translation from Chinese)

9p.30m: Film Screening: Curse of the Golden Flower
Director: Zhang Yimous
Year: 2007

FRIDAY THE 18TH OF NOVEMBER
10am-2pm: From China to the World and Back: Seminar on translation
Introduction by Anna Gustafsson Chen, Eric Abrahamsen, Xi Chuan, Harald Bøckman, Lars Devold and others
Translating between Chinese and European languages can prove to be a difficult task when the written languages present such different linguistic structures. In Europe, Chinese literature is often translated from earlier English translations, a practice which can lead to mistakes and inaccuracies. What are the challenges one faces while translating and interpreting between Indo-European languages and Chinese? We meet up with translators who tell us about their work.
Language: English

1pm-2pm: School visits with Yiyun Li
With secondary-schools students
The House of Literature invites Norwegian students to meet Yiyun Li, whose collection of short stories Gold Boy, Emerald Girl: Stories has recently been published in Norwegian under the title Skinnende gull, glitrende smaragd.
Language: English

6pm: The World seen from China
Lecture by Murong Xuecun
In a time where China is becoming more and more relevant in the world arena, the realization that the world might look different from a Chinese rather than from a Norwegian or Western perspective becomes even clearer. Art and literature can be a good means to access and familiarize oneself with the Chinese way of thinking and everyday life. How does the world and China itself, look from a Chinese perspective?
Language: English and Chinese (with simultaneous translation)

7pm: Short readings in the bookshop from Han Song, Mian Mian and Zou Zou
Language: Chinese, with translation

8pm: Stage conversations with Ma Jian and Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li 李翊雲 (born 1972) is of current interest to the Norwegian literary scene as she is coming out with the collection of short stories Skinnende gull, glitrende smaragder (in English , the collection came out under the title Gold Boy, Emerald Girl: Stories). Her first novel Omstreifere (in English, the Vagrants) was also published in Norwegian in 2010. Ma Jian 马建 (born 1953) won great international acclaim for his travelogue Rødt Støv (In English Red Dust) His main work Beijing Coma came out in Norwegian (Beijing Koma) last year. Meet both writers in conversations with Norwegian writer and journalist Alf Kjetil Walgermo.
Language: Norwegian (translated from Chinese) and English

9.30pm: Film screening: Red Sorghum
Director: Zhang Yimou
Year: 1987
Introduction by professor in Chinese Halvor Eifring



SATURDAY THE 19TH OF NOVEMBER
12am: Chinese Fairytales
Reading to children both in Norwegian and Chinese
Actress Unn Vibeke Hol will read and tell Chinese fairytales in Norwegian while Fens Xian Lin reads in Chinese. Chinese illustrated books will also be made available for reading in the Children’s room.
Language: Norwegian

1pm: China!
An introduction to China for children from age six and up
China is a big country with a lot of inhabitants. Actually one in five of the world's inhabitants is Chinese. Did you know that Chinese people refer to their country as “the Middle Kingdom”, or that it was the Chinese who invented the art of book printing, paper making, gunpowder and the compass? With Lei Wang Hodneland.
Language: Norwegian

2pm: Short readings in the bookshop from Yiyun Li and Ma Jian

3pm: Chinese dynasties
A Travel Narrative by Torbjørn Færøvik
China’s history is long and fascinating. Chinese civilization appeared about 6000 years before the Western Christian Era. About 4000 years ago the first dynasties appeared, and they would last until 1912, when the Republic of China was formed. Writer and historian Torbjørn Færøvik has written several books about China and takes us on a journey through the different dynasties, myths and arts.
Language: Norwegian

5pm China on the meny
Dinner and talk with Hong and Per Egil Hegge
Table reservations post@kafeoslo.no. (Set menu: 200,-)

8pm: An Evening of Celebration!
Readings by Yiyun Li, Lan Lan, Murong Xuecun, Cheng Yongxin, Li Er, Xu Zechen, Mian Mian, Han Song and Xi Chuan
Welcome to our evening of celebration with eleven Chinese writers, book readings and a concert. We close this Chinese literature week at the House of Literature with literary and cultural experiences. Concert with Chinese folk musician Xiaogang Zeng and Rolf-Erik Nystrøm. Host: Anna Bache-Wiig
Language: Norwegian (with translation from Chinese)

SUNDAY THE 20TH OF NOVEMBER
1pm: Film Screening for children: Kung Fu Panda
While the panda-bear Po works in his father’s restaurant, he actually dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master. Suddenly one day something happens which brings him a bit closer to his dreams: the evil and dangerous Snow Leopard Tai Lung is bent on war, and an ancient prophecy entrusts Po with the mission to stop him. But is he capable of it? Best suited for children from seven and up.
Language: Norwegian