21. Context and contradiction in translating Aroma’s Little Garden, by Qin Wenjun

We’re delighted to have a guest post by Tony Blishen, whose translation of Aroma’s Little Garden 《小香草》, by Qin Wenjun has just been published by the Better Link Press in New York. Having lived and worked in China in the 1960s, Tony is now a prolific translator of both fiction and non-fiction.  Aroma’s Little Garden is the first children’s book he has translated, and in November won a Shanghai Translation Publishing Promotion Award (《上海翻译出版促进计划》 翻译资助). And, My Father with a Heart of Stone, the final story in Aroma’s Little Garden, just won the author the fiction award in the 2016 Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Prize. Congratulations to both of them! 

20. Reflecting Teenagers on a Sichuanese Mirror: Yan Ge and her stories from Pingle Township

We’re delighted to have another guest post! Martina Codeluppi introduces a Young Adult story by Yan Ge, writes about her experience of translating Yan Ge’s work into Italian, and interviews Yan Ge and translator Nicky Harman, who has translated Yan Ge’s work into English. Thank you Martina!   Yan Ge will be at the China Changing event at the Southbank Centre, London, on 16 December – come and hear her in person! 

19. A picture’s worth a thousand words…

On 3 November, we posted a piece about Zhang Xinxin and Little People’s Books. Zhang Xinxin created the beautiful banner for our blog, and she kindly highlighted our blog on her Weibo page. It seems we are not the only people who like this image. On 11 November, the Chinese periodical Wen yi bao (“Literature and Arts Paper”) reproduced it in its print and online edition. 

18. Made in China: 10 picture books you can’t miss

This was the title of an article by Li Hongrui in China Daily, 14 July 2016. Li gave an illustration, an English title, and a short review for each Chinese book. While it’s great to see picture books being recommended, we need more information to make it easier to find them and read them for ourselves. So, I’m adding the authors, illustrators, publishers, ISBNs and an online link here. One of them (no.10) was A New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2011! And we’re looking forward to seeing another one (no.3) published in English in 2017!

17. Calling them Asian-American books isn’t sufficient…

In October, the Worlds of Words project at the University of Arizona ran a series of blogs on the theme New Trends in Transnational Asian Children’s Books – five very interesting posts by Yoo Kyung Sung and Junko Sakoi: 

16. Zhang Xinxin and Little People’s Books

We’re very grateful to Zhang Xinxin 张辛欣 for allowing us to use her wonderful image for our header. This scene of children reading little people’s books is from her graphic novel Paihuazi and the Clever Girl 《拍花子和俏女孩》 about her childhood and teenage years in Beijing. While all the other children were scared that Paihuazi might come and steal them away, Zhang Xinxin longed to find him and escape to another life. 

15. Nami Island International Picture Book Illustration Concours 2017 – shortlist

The shortlist of 150 entries from 43 nations has just been announced. On the shortlist are: