In China, the literary establishment celebrated “China’s Thoreau” on the twenty-second anniversary of his death. In the USA, virtual events raised issues in the field and craft of literary translation, and in Malaysia, an upcoming poetry contest promises to shed light on the country’s multilingual literary landscape. Dive in!
Xiao Yue Shan, Blog Editor, reporting from China
“One day, mankind shall look back on the origins of his failure to survive on earth. He will find that, in 1712, an Englishman named Thomas Newcomen—a predecessor of James Watt—tried to create for this world the very first steam engine.”
The above words, taken from the Chinese writer 伟岸 Wei An’s essay, “大地上的事情” (The Earth’s Happenings), indicate towards how the late essayist, thinker, and diarist came to be known as “China’s Thoreau.” In characteristically attentive, ruminative, and exacting prose, Wei An’s moralist sensitivity to humanity’s presence and existence on earth sought to honor and preserve the organic nature of life, leading his contemporaries to believe, as writer Lin Xianzhi said: “The life of Wei An has given Chinese literature a direct and elucidating fact: that the writer must first and foremost be a person of excellent virtue.” On May 19, the twenty-second anniversary of his death, an event entitled “The Philosophy of Earth” was held in Wei An’s honor, with discussions revolving around the posthumous collection of the author’s diaries from 1986 to 1999, entitled 泥土就在我身旁 (The Dirt Is Beside Me), as well as the revised edition of his total collected works, edited by Feng Qiuzi and published last year.