Conversation with Yu Hua

A conversation between the well-known Chinese writer Yu Hua and Carles Prado, specialist in Chinese literature. Presented by Ricard Planas, director of the publishing house Males Herbes and the translator Carla Benet Duran.

China has undergone far-reaching economic, political and social changes since the end of the Cultural Revolution. How has Chinese literature reflected this colossal transformation? What kind of evolution taken place in literary production since Mao’s death? Why is Yu Hua’s always-innovative prose so harsh and trenchant? Yu Hua and Carles Prado will address these and other questions in their discussion, which is to be the inaugural lecture in the Master’s Degree in Chinese Studies at the Pompeu Fabra University. The dialogue is also being offered on the occasion of the publication of the first translation into Catalan of Yu Hua’s work, El passat i els càstigs (Les Males Herbes, 2013 – published in English as The Past and the Punishments,University of Hawaii Press, 1996).