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Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/62088 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation Author: Krenz, Joanna Title: Life on a strip : essayism and emigration in contemporary Chinese literature Date: 2018-05-15 Life on a Strip ∞ Essayism and Emigration in Contemporary Chinese Literature by Joanna Krenz © 2018, Joanna Krenz Photographs on the front and back cover: Möbius strip-inspired Chinese Lucky Knot Bridge in the city of Changsha. Photographer: Krzysztof Kowalczyk Life on a Strip Essayism and Emigration in Contemporary Chinese Literature PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus Prof. mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op 15 mei 2018 klokke 16:15 uur door Joanna Krenz geboren te Gniezno, Polen in 1989 Promotores: Prof. Dr. Maghiel van Crevel (Leiden University) Prof. Dr. Izabella Łabędzka (Adam Mickiewicz University) Promotiecommissie: Prof. Dr. Ernst van Alphen (Leiden University) Prof. Dr. Jeroen de Kloet (University of Amsterdam) Prof. Dr. Esther Peeren (University of Amsterdam) Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 9 PART ONE. One-Sided Writing, or the Essay .................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 1. An Emigratology of the Essay? Authors’ Perspectives on the Essay and Emigration ........................................................................................................................... 21 I. Private Histories of the Essay ............................................................................................... 23 II. Private Theories of the Essay .............................................................................................. 29 III. Shared Metaphors ............................................................................................................... 43 IV. Trajectories, Strategies, Tactics ......................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER 2. An Essayography of Emigration: How Essays Reflect the Emigration Experience ........................................................................................................................... 55 I. Recollecting: Reliving the Past ............................................................................................. 55 II. Collecting: Finding One’s Self on the Other Shore ............................................................ 67 III. Re-Collecting: Architecture of Elsewhere ......................................................................... 77 INTERLUDE. In Search of the Mechanics below the Moving Grounds of Contemporary Literature ............................................................................................................................. 85 PART TWO. Failed Connections, Undelivered Messages: Essayization and Related Things ................................................................................................................................. 97 CHAPTER 3. Essayization Inside Out: What Happens in the Cells of Essayized Texts ........ 99 I. Who Writes Whom? Transcending the Physics of the Genre .............................................. 99 II. From Life-Writing to Live Writing ................................................................................... 116 CHAPTER 4. Restructured Firmaments of Poetry: Essayization in the Eyes and Hands of Emigrating Poets and Their Readers ................................................................................. 131 I. Bei Dao: “Newton Is Dead”. But He Shall Be Resurrected. .............................................. 132 II. Coffee and Truth in Zhai Yongming’s Poetry .................................................................. 146 CHAPTER 5. Aberrant Narratives? Essayistic Fashion in Fiction ........................................ 157 I. Expanding or Shrinking? Fictional Universes in Ha Jin and Han Shaogong .................... 159 II. Three Readers..................................................................................................................... 177 PART THREE. At a Distance of a Tongue: Essay(ization) in Translation Theory and Practice ............................................................................................................................. 181 CHAPTER 6. The Translator at the Floodgates ..................................................................... 183 I. Essaying Translation: Sense or Sound ................................................................................ 184 II. After the Word: Essayistic or Translational ...................................................................... 197 Appendices ............................................................................................................................. 207 Appendix A: Originals of Poetry by Wang Jiaxin, Wang Xiaoni, Bei Dao and Zhai Yongming ............................................................................................................................... 207 Appendix B: “Deathfugue” in German, English and Chinese .............................................. 217 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 223 Glossary of Chinese Names and Terms ................................................................................. 243 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 247 Samenvatting in het Nederlands ............................................................................................. 249 Acknowledgements This work is not as much an effect of institutionally embedded systematic research with clearly distinguished periods of fieldwork, data processing, analysis, and writing, as it is a synthesis of many years of readings, observations and reflections on literature, which started taking shape more concretely during my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Chinese Department and the Polish Philology Faculty of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (AMU) in 2008-2013 under the guidance of many professors. Their support exceeded the intellectual. Anna Legeżyńska, professor of Polish literature, specializing in contemporary poetry was the first teacher who courageously accepted an invitation to my literary laboratory several years ago, when it was still very under-equipped yet, and was lacking in safety regulations, so any simple reaction could have had catastrophical effects. If things did not blow up, it was thanks to her. Core elements of this study emerged gradually and were continuously updated through my interactions, sometimes intended and long-planned, and sometimes totally haphazard (on Chinese trains, in the street, facing bookstore’s shelves), with people from all walks of life I encountered during my own physical and metaphorical migrations. Some may not even know they were involved, much less realize how much they helped. All those whose constructive influence on my way of thinking of literature, culture and the world at large I am able to identify will always remain in my grateful memory. Help sometimes comes through most unexpected channels and bears most unexpected fruit. This is what my communication with Krzysztof Kowalczyk, the author of the cover photographs, taught me, also confirming once again in my life that the most beautiful way to pay for a favor one has received is to pass the good on to a next person. Those who had the most direct impact on the final shape of the thesis were my two supervisors: Maghiel van Crevel of Leiden University and Izabella Łabędzka from AMU. I thank Maghiel van Crevel for encouraging my experimental passion and being ready to walk with me many extra miles, offering his invaluable advise and a pair of vigilant eyes which were able to detect even mistakes in my translations from the Polish language, which he does not speak. I thank Izabella Łabędzka for her almost ten years of help at all levels of my academic research, from my BA thesis through the MA dissertation to the present PhD project, which probably would not have started if it were not for her gentle persuasion. I thank both of them for their joint effort at teaching me intellectual self- discipline, and I promise to keep working on this. My gratitude extends to the members of the reading committee who reviewed my thesis: Professor Ernst van Alphen, Professor Jeroen de Kloet and Professor Esther Peeren. Their critical feedback allowed me to identify and fix many problems. 7 I wish to express my thankfulness also to a number of Chinese authors, not only those whose works are analyzed in the present work, for absorbing meetings and discussions, mostly on poetry. Special thanks go to Yu Jian and Wang Jiaxin who were my first and most patient guides on the Chinese poetry scene, always ready for conversation and showing me the way to many inspiring literary events; and to Zang Di and Sha Ke for what they did for me during my most difficult first weeks in Beijing. Finally, I thank my family and friends for their heart-warming presence at every stage of my life. I am particularly grateful to my parents Małgorzata