
Old Kiln by Jia Pingwa: An unforgettable masterpiece depicting rural China during the Cultural Revolution
Author
:
Jia Pingwa, translated by James Trapp, Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne
ISBN-13
:
978-1838905262
Publisher
:
Sinoist Books
Guideline Price
:
£19.99
Jia Pingwa is one of the most respected and widely read writers in
China
. He is particularly associated with realist writing about rural communities in his home province of Shaanxi. Though several of his novels have been translated into English, he has not yet had the major breakthrough he deserves.
Old Kiln adds to the growing list of contemporary Chinese fiction that explores Mao Zedong's disastrous Cultural Revolution, including works by Yan Lianke, Zou Jingzhi and Zhang Xianliang. Jia Pingwa was a teenager during that period and writes with both the authority of direct experience and the benefit of perspective.
The novel is set in the remote village of Old Kiln, known in years past for its excellence in porcelain, but now a poor backwater relying on subsistence communal farming.
The story focuses on young Inkcap, who was found in a river and adopted. He lives with his Gran who is considered a 'class enemy' owing to Inkcap's grandfather's ties to the nationalist Kuomintang army.
READ MORE
Bash is a charismatic local tough who becomes the leader of a violent faction at the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution. He is central to the bloody internecine struggles between rival factions in the village. Contrasting with Bash is Goodman, the village's unofficial spiritual guide and healer, whose world view is steeped in Daoism and Buddhism rather than Maoist ideology.
This long novel moves at the slow pace of village life; however, it is brimming with vibrant characters, ribald humour and memorable anecdotes. It offers precision writing that re-creates the experience of living among uneducated people who have become infantilised and bewildered by successive waves of ideological reform.
The translation has been split between three talented translators, and it is to their immense credit that the novel retains such unity of style and coherence of tone, without losing any of the comedy and tenderness that makes it so human.
Old Kiln is quietly epic in its patient but unforgettable depiction of life in rural China under the tyranny of the Cultural Revolution. It is unquestionably a masterpiece and ought to consolidate Jia Pingwa's reputation as a writer of international importance.
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Irish Times
17-07-2025
- Irish Times
Old Kiln by Jia Pingwa: An unforgettable masterpiece depicting rural China during the Cultural Revolution
Old Kiln Author : Jia Pingwa, translated by James Trapp, Olivia Milburn and Christopher Payne ISBN-13 : 978-1838905262 Publisher : Sinoist Books Guideline Price : £19.99 Jia Pingwa is one of the most respected and widely read writers in China . He is particularly associated with realist writing about rural communities in his home province of Shaanxi. Though several of his novels have been translated into English, he has not yet had the major breakthrough he deserves. Old Kiln adds to the growing list of contemporary Chinese fiction that explores Mao Zedong's disastrous Cultural Revolution, including works by Yan Lianke, Zou Jingzhi and Zhang Xianliang. Jia Pingwa was a teenager during that period and writes with both the authority of direct experience and the benefit of perspective. The novel is set in the remote village of Old Kiln, known in years past for its excellence in porcelain, but now a poor backwater relying on subsistence communal farming. The story focuses on young Inkcap, who was found in a river and adopted. He lives with his Gran who is considered a 'class enemy' owing to Inkcap's grandfather's ties to the nationalist Kuomintang army. READ MORE Bash is a charismatic local tough who becomes the leader of a violent faction at the vanguard of the Cultural Revolution. He is central to the bloody internecine struggles between rival factions in the village. Contrasting with Bash is Goodman, the village's unofficial spiritual guide and healer, whose world view is steeped in Daoism and Buddhism rather than Maoist ideology. This long novel moves at the slow pace of village life; however, it is brimming with vibrant characters, ribald humour and memorable anecdotes. It offers precision writing that re-creates the experience of living among uneducated people who have become infantilised and bewildered by successive waves of ideological reform. The translation has been split between three talented translators, and it is to their immense credit that the novel retains such unity of style and coherence of tone, without losing any of the comedy and tenderness that makes it so human. Old Kiln is quietly epic in its patient but unforgettable depiction of life in rural China under the tyranny of the Cultural Revolution. It is unquestionably a masterpiece and ought to consolidate Jia Pingwa's reputation as a writer of international importance.


The Irish Sun
25-06-2025
- The Irish Sun
Harry has William and the King over a barrel – they'll look so petty if they ignore his latest request
PRINCE Harry has King Charles and William over a barrel and will make them look 'petty' if they ignore his latest request, according to experts. The Duke of Sussex, 40, has invited both members of his estranged family to the next Invictus Games in 2027. 5 If the King and Prince William attend it could mark a big step towards reconciliation with Harry Credit: Getty 5 The brothers have been at loggerheads ever since Harry and Meghan quit the royal family in 2020 Credit: Splash 5 Harry's invite runs the risk of making the monarch and his brother look "petty" Credit: Getty Harry has drawn up the invitations in advance to give the King and Prince William time to fit it into their schedules, despite it clashing with a royal bash. The ceremony will kick off at Birmingham's NEC on July 12, 2027, and will wrap up on July 17. The event falls on the same day as Queen Camilla's 80th birthday, a special occasion that will surely be celebrated by the royal family. But if the monarch and his eldest son were to attend it could mark the biggest step towards reconciliation so far. Read more Royals news Speaking on The Sun's Royal Exclusive show, Royal Correspondent, Bronte Coy, said if the duo don't attend, it runs the risk of looking "petty". She said: "I think this is such a difficult one, I've given this one a lot of thought. "There's a lot of sympathy, understanding and respect for the King's and William's position because I think anyone can relate that if you've been spoken about publicly, and had your personal issues with family members aired in that way, of course you would be angry. "And of course, you'd be well within your right to shut it down and cut him off because there's no trust." Most read in Royals But Coy added that the event goes "beyond Harry", especially when the military are involved. She added: "But it's in the UK and you're talking about the military community of which the royals are very, very, very entwined. "You do run the risk of looking a little bit petty if they don't go and support it, given their position in supporting the military community." "I think it's going to particularly complicated and something that is going to be discussed a lot in the palace." Also speaking on the show was ex-palace spokesman, Dickie Arbiter, who said: "I think Harry has flagged up that he would like his dad and his brother there. "But you have to clear up a lot of bad air to get them there because William really doesn't want to have anything to do with him. "A parent is slightly different - he loves his son but he's very hurt by what his son has done and there doesn't seem to be any move of rapprochement." He added: "It would cause a massive headache because you don't just roll over having been rubbished for such a long time. "To rubbish the royal family to that extent and then expect everybody to roll over, kiss and make up, all is forgiven. "There's an equation to this and the other half to the equation is Mrs Sussex." This comes after Harry revealed last month that "I would like to get my father and brother back" in his Prince Harry practices his German as he shares video message to mark country's first Veteran's Day It's not yet known whether Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, will be in attendance after the Duke It comes as Harry said a reconciliation with his family lay in the Charles' hands. The Duke told the BBC that there was no reason to keep fighting but that his father wouldn't speak to him over the security row. Harry said Charles "won't speak to me because of this security stuff", after "I would love reconciliation with my family. There's no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious", Harry continued. Harry also sensationally blamed the King for his woes and claimed "this whole thing could be resolved through him". There was hope for reconciliation last year when Harry travelled to the UK to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of his Invictus Games. However, the King and Harry failed to meet due to the Monarch's "full programme". And the Duke was offered to spend his time at one of the royal apartments - however he turned it down in what Meanwhile, Princes William and Harry have not been in direct communication since the release of Harry's controversial memoir, Spare, in January 2023. Their last reported interaction was during the funeral of their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022, but conversations were said to be brief. The feuding brothers reportedly did not speak to each other despite standing 'virtually back to back' among mourners at their uncle's memorial service last year. The brothers have been at loggerheads since A timeline of Prince Harry's family feud The first hints of friction reportedly came after William was introduced to Meghan when she was staying at Kensington Palace. Once she'd returned home to Canada, William and Harry sat down for a brother-to-brother chat. He knew Harry was already head-over-heels for her but it has been claimed he advised him to take it slowly. The younger prince reportedly didn't take too kindly to the advice, with one royal source saying he "went mental". Then in June 2019 Harry and Meghan officially The Royal Foundation will be divided between the Sussexes and Cambridges as the couples focus on their own separate charitable endeavours. Prince William and Prince Harry first established the Royal Foundation in 2009 before Kate joined two years later shortly after their engagement was announced. The trio would often appear together at events and the Foundation had huge successes with projects like the Invictus Games for injured veterans and the mental health Heads Together campaign. The Royal Foundation said the decision was made following the conclusion of a review into its structure - but added both couples will continue to work together in the future. Harry and Meg were living in close proximity to Kate and Wills within the Kensington Palace estate, but they switched to The move further increased rumours of a fallout. Harry also hinted in his In 2021, Harry and Meghan give their Harry then jetted back to UK to join William in unveiling a statue to their mother Princess Diana in the grounds of Kensington Palace. But sources claimed William didn't want to attend the memorial amid their ongoing rift. In 2022, just before their grandmother the Queen died, sources claimed Kate In Harry alleged William "grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor". He said he was left with a visible injury to his back following the argument in 2019 at Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of In January 2024, Harry flew back to the US the following day - without seeing Wills. 5 It's not yet clear whether Meghan will also be in attendance at the Invictus Games Credit: Getty 5 The brothers used to share a close bond together with their father


Irish Times
22-06-2025
- Irish Times
Fiction in translation: The strange workings of myth and history, a work of limpid beauty set in the Bosnian countryside, and more
Commenting on the 11 short stories that make up his stunning collection Hunter (Granta Magazine Editions, £12.99, in a vivid translation by Jeremy Tiang), Chinese author Shuang Xuetao has said: 'I tried to write about things historical as well as contemporary, realistic as well as not quite realistic'. In Shuang's work, ostensibly about the harsh, often callously wrought facts of life, there is a bold contention with the strange workings of myth and history. In Premonition, science-fiction writer Xiaobing, happily married with a young son, makes an unusual request to his wife that they sleep separately; what he does not tell her is that he has been subject since childhood to dark, shadowy premonitions that ultimately come true. To slake his insomnia, he drives to his favourite night fishing spot, where he meets a screwdriver-wielding nemesis from outer space, a man somewhat prosaically named Andrew, who accuses Xiaobing and his ancestors of 'stealing a sentence': an encounter replete with wit and pathos. An ambulance rushes through the night in Heart, one of the collection's most powerful stories, and its opener: an old man in a family with a history of hereditary heart problems is rushed to a hospital in Beijing, accompanied by his adult son and a young female doctor. As the surreal journey unfolds, the son relays his father's history to the doctor, but the occupants of the ambulance, including the driver, intermittently fall asleep, while the patient blooms once more into a vivid, pre-death life. READ MORE At the centre of the story is the woodworker ancestor 'who could make anything from a coffin to a comb'. On his unexpected death he is found to have 'a heart full of tiny wood-shavings, enough to build a foot-high pagoda'. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara. Photograph: Alejandra López 'The first day in the jungle, the day he fled, he still didn't know how to see. Now he does. It's nearly impossible in this world of plants. But he sees it. A tender vine-shoot veers around itself until it meets another, intertwining myriad.' Although set in the 17th century, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara's rich, baroque We Are Green and Trembling (Harvill Secker, £18.99, sumptuously translated by Robin Myers) is strikingly relevant to the present day. Cabezón Cámara uses history to illuminate and interrogate current threats to trans representation and, in parallel, to interrogate the enduring, dehumanising effects of colonisation. Her epic in miniature is that of Antonio de Erauso, born a woman, Catalina, in Spain around 1592. Wikipedia lists him as 'Basque nun and explorer', a mere indication of de Erauso's extraordinary life. Escaping, aged 15, from the convent in which he was virtually jailed by his aunt, its prioress (to whom, in the novel, Antonio addresses letters) Catalina adopted men's attire as disguise, eventually journeying to the New World, first as a cabin boy, then as secretary to a particularly unpleasant conquistador, becoming part pf the violent, buccaneering conquest of Peru, Chile and Bolivia by Spain. But as told here, he also protected and championed two young indigenous girls, rescuing them from enslavement. De Erauso's shape-shifting is a mercurial tale for all time. The image of death hangs over all in the shape of a buzzard: an unforgettable image of perpetuated abominations. Heuijung Hur; Photograph: Studio mulight Summer is the perfect time for discovery, drama and unexpectedness. Heuijung Hur's deliciously unsettling Failed Summer Vacation (Scratch Books, £10.99, nimbly translated by Paige Aniyah Morris) crosses genres in a collection riddled with unsentimental yearning and emptiness. 'I've long been obsessed with the idea that I was pretending to be someone else,' confides the title story's anonymous narrator. In a small room at a beach resort, the speaker addresses a 'you' who may or may not be present. 'The cramped room. My alibi. Our freshly made beds'. What is actually going on? Has a crime been committed, or is it all in the mind? The prose is chilling and sensuous, the denouement ominous. This theme of entrapment haunts the collection. 'Paper Cut' begins simply: 'A wanted to run away.' A is stuck in his room, with an omnipresent feeling of guilt for a crime he cannot remember committing – or is he about to carry one out? He is awaiting his regular visit from a person he describes simply as 'that man. The visit had been prearranged.' The man, who is made entirely from paper, each time demands 'a statement' from A. What ensues is a wildly funny, Kafkaesque battle of wills – either bureaucracy gone mad, or perhaps just A's own frantic imagination. Each one of these breezily disturbing short fictions is a small marvel of originality. Compared by its publisher to Elena Ferrante, but more in debt to the simplicity of Georges Simenon (alluded to in the author's afterword), Charia Valerio's The Little I knew (Foundry Editions, £13.99, with a cool, confident translation by Ailsa Wood complementing Valerio's style) is no crime procedural, though it revolves around the hushed-up death of a woman at home inher bath. A bestseller in Italy, it was shortlisted for the Strega Prize. The setting is Scauri, an out-of-the-way seaside town between Rome and Naples. Vittoria, who had mysteriously arrived there some 30 years before, and whom everyone knows but yet does not know, has an 'accident' in her bath at the home she shares with her partner Mara. A veil of silence falls over the townspeople as Lea, the local lawyer, fed up with dealing with the petty crimes and disputes that are the routine of her work, decides to investigate the woman she had always been fascinated by, the first woman to have her own boat space at a club dominated by men. 'The hatred I'd always felt for Scauri as a girl was back. The feeling of airlessness.' What follows is a thrilling examination of the black hole of society and the secrets people keep from each other and themselves. [ Fiction in translation (May 2025): The Deserters traverses 20th century and brims with interesting ideas Opens in new window ] In Late Summer , by Croatian writer Magdalena Blaźević (Linden Editions, £12, translated with verve and sensitivity by Andelka Raguž), is a work of limpid beauty drenched in sorrow. A massacre takes place in a quiet village in the Bosnian countryside one hot August day; the events leading up to that and after are narrated by a chatty, confiding young girl, Ivana, aged 14. 'Old, hanging faces are already lined up on the road, their hands behind their heads.' Yet Ivana is also dead, shot in front of her mother and brother outside their house. Ivana should be hanging out with her cousin Dunja, picking blackberries for jam, helping her mother. But she is 'hit by one spark ... my camomile hair spread out on the road, its light extinguished ... the sky is the last thing I see, poisoned by smoke and unknown voices'. The figure of Death (in Ivana's capitals) stalks the book, and yet it is also a work of grace and joy, a testament to the lives of generations of Bosnians until the horrific genocide of the early 1990s. Above all it stands as a memorial to, as Blaźević's dedication states, 'the citizens of Kiseljak, in memory of 16 August 1993'. War dominates The World We Saw Burning , an uncompromising novel from Peruvian journalist and writer Renato Cisneros (Charco Press, £11.99, in a fine translation by Fionn Petch). Cisneros pulls together differing, stirring strands, effortlessly switching between the past and present day, yet never loses sight of his goal or his grip on the story. 'Certain tragedies devour the memories of their victims, imposing a point zero from which everything has to begin again. The mistake ... is to look back.' Matías Roeder, son of an Italian father and German mother, immigrates at the age of 19 from Peru to New York. It is 1939. Eventually he will join the US Air Force, his whole raison d'être called into question when he finds himself involved in the bombing of Hamburg, his grandfather's city. Cisneros skilfully intersperses his narrative with that of two Peruvians living in contemporary Madrid, in a rousing story of migration and identity.