Our next book, Selected Essays of Shi Tiesheng, translated by Jennifer Feeley, will introduce one of the most acclaimed Chinese writers of the 20th century to English-language readers, and offer up a stylistically-diverse showcase of Shi’s most important work. 

Shi Tiesheng was born in Beijing in 1951. He graduated from Tsinghua University High School (the epicenter for the youth movement known as the Red Guard, who Mao emboldened to fulfill his plans for the Cultural Revolution). The city of Beijing with its teaming street life, tectonic shifts in culture, organization, and architecture is as much a presence in Shi’s writing as any of the characters he portrays. His three year stint as a sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution to the Shaanxi countryside shaped his life and his work irrevocably. There, a mysterious accident or illness paralyzed Shi for life. There are many stories as to what caused Shi’s disability, of which many may be apocryphal; whatever happened, it confined him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and fast-tracked his return to Beijing. 

Shi’s work slyly evades simple categorization. While his disability was undeniably a profoundly influential event, it is only one component of the complex narratives Shi crafts. Shi’s prose ranges in tenor from lyrical to matter-of-factly journalistic, sometimes in a single essay, and he frequently utilizes colloquialisms of the sort that are difficult to convey in a different language and cultural context. Translating such a writer is no easy feat, but Jennifer Feeley has succeeded in capturing the unique quality of Shi’s artistry in a way that no English translation has yet attempted. This will be an important, enjoyable, and highly readable collection, to be released in 2021.