CHINESE FANTASY

CHA

AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL

Cha is an English-language Hong Kong literary journal devoted to Asian arts and cultures. I wrote, for their "reviews" section, an article entitled "Strange Beasts of China : Harnessing Zhiguai and Magic Realism to Satirise Othering " published on the journal's blog in November 2022.

This analysis of the contemporary fantasy novel Strange Beasts of China , by Yan Ge, examines the ways in which this series of tales set in present-day China, evoking various species of monstrous "beasts", and all intertwined in such a way as to reveal the secrets of the origins of the (human) (or is she, really?) narrator, borrows from zhiguai through some of its themes, to magic realism through its ambiguous treatment of the status of the supernatural, and to postcolonial discourse in the way it denounces otherning through the symbolic example of "beasts" and the way they are treated by humans.

The article can be read at this address: https://chajournal.blog/2022/11/16/beasts/

Strange Beasts of China 's page on its publisher's websit e: https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/store/strange-beasts-of-china

CHA

AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL

Issue 46

Written for the reviews section of Cha (a Hong-Kong-based, English-language literary journal dedicated to the arts and cultures of Asia), my article "The Fox Spirit of Bluestone Mountain: Female Force, Bridges from Zhiguai to Novel, and a Royal Rumble of Myth" is about The Fox Spirit of Bluestone Mountain, a 19th-century Chinese fantasy novel recently translated into English.

I analyze how the novel synthesizes the different aspects of the figure of the anthropomorphic and seductive fox spirit, a recurring character in Chinese folklore and fantasy, and how the novel uses mythological intertextuality and the conventions of several Chinese literary traditions to create a rich narrative and a particularly complex and compelling fox figure.

The article will be published on line in issue 46 of Cha, at an as-yet undisclosed date (the current issue featured on the journal's homepage is issue 44). In the meantime, the article is already prepublished in the "reviews" section of the journal's blog, at the following address: https://chajournal.blog/2020/08/24/fox-spirit/

Here is also the page of The Fox Spirit of Bluestone Mountain on its publisher's website:
https://camphorpress.com/books/fox-spirit-of-bluestone-mountain/

CHA

AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL

Issue 46

Written for the reviews section of Cha (a Hong-Kong-based, English-language literary journal dedicated to the arts and cultures of Asia), my article "The Flock of Ba-Hui: Lovecraft's New England Nightmares Meet the Mythical Geography of China" is about The Flock of Ba-Hui, a Chinese collection of short stories that incorporates the fictional world of American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft into Chinese physical and cultural landscapes.

I analyze the ways the author (Oobmab) and his translators and co-authors (Akira and Arthur Meursault) blend the two cultural universes, and I contextualize the experiment, both as part of Chinese fantastic and horror fiction, and as part of Lovecraft's cultural legacy.

The article will be published on line in issue 46 of Cha, at an as-yet undisclosed date (the current issue featured on the journal's homepage is issue 44). In the meantime, the article is already prepublished in the "reviews" section of the journal's blog, at the following address:

https://chajournal.blog/2020/05/05/flock-of-ba-hui/

Here is also the page de The Flock of Ba-Hui on its publisher's website:
https://camphorpress.com/books/the-flock-of-ba-hui/