enne📚 reviewed The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories by Yu Chen
The Way Spring Arrives
4 stars
Of course no one is arguing that translators must always match the precise identities and background of the writer—that is implausible, and misses the point besides. It is not about political correctness or judgments of who is “allowed” to do what, it is about epistemic access. When moving between languages also involves moving between worlds, perhaps it helps that the translators, too, are people who are used to being on the outside, who are used to navigating hidden spaces, and who are familiar with the challenge of making themselves understood.
A couple of things I really liked about this collection of short stories is that there was also some non-fiction bits as well. There was a really interesting essay about the internet and "net novels" in Chinese writing. RF Kuang topped off the collection with an essay about translation (quoted above). Yilin Wang also wrote a preface to two stories …
Of course no one is arguing that translators must always match the precise identities and background of the writer—that is implausible, and misses the point besides. It is not about political correctness or judgments of who is “allowed” to do what, it is about epistemic access. When moving between languages also involves moving between worlds, perhaps it helps that the translators, too, are people who are used to being on the outside, who are used to navigating hidden spaces, and who are familiar with the challenge of making themselves understood.
A couple of things I really liked about this collection of short stories is that there was also some non-fiction bits as well. There was a really interesting essay about the internet and "net novels" in Chinese writing. RF Kuang topped off the collection with an essay about translation (quoted above). Yilin Wang also wrote a preface to two stories with interesting details about translation choices in them.
It's always hard to evaluate an anthology, especially when I am not well versed in tropes or mythology that authors are playing with. Here's some stories I particularly enjoyed:
"A Brief History of Beinakan Disasters as Told in a Sinitic Language": an alien species with an interesting hereditary memory and the justifications they make for their choices along the way
"Dragonslaying": a doctor wanting to prove herself to her male colleagues investigates a "dragon-slaying" clan that turn jiaoren into more human shapes
"The Stars We Raised": an area where (possibly sentient?) stars periodically fall and local children keep them as tiny flying pets until their parents take them away to sell to cement makers
