Winter Pasture
Page 36
toy: feast
tus-kiiz: embroidered tapestries made of cotton, which are often colorful
zongzi: a traditional Chinese dish made from sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves.
Goodbye, winter pasture! (The character in the snow reads “Argh!”)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Xinjiang in 1979, Li Juan grew up in Sichuan Province. In her youth, she learned to sew and run a small convenience store with her mother, living in a town where nomads shopped. Later, she worked in a factory in the city of Urumqi. In 2003, she became a public servant, until 2008, when she became a full-time author. Her writing career began in 1999, as a columnist for newspapers like Southern Weekly and Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po. Widely regarded as one of the best narrative nonfiction writers of her generation, Li Juan’s writing has won several awards. Winter Pasture is considered her most popular and representative work.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS
Jack Hargreaves is a Chinese–English translator from East Yorkshire, now based in London. Specializing in literary and academic translation, his work has appeared in Asymptote Journal, Paper Republic, and Los Angeles Review of Books China Channel and includes writing by Zhu Yiye, Isaac Hsu, Yuan Ling, and Ye Duoduo. He translated Shen Dacheng’s short story “The Novelist in the Attic” for Comma Press’s The Book of Shanghai. Forthcoming translations include Yang Dian’s flash fiction collection A Contrarian’s Tales, A History of Chinese Philosophical Thought by Zhang Xianghao, and Buddhism and Buddhology by Hong Xiuping. Jack recently joined the Paper Republic team.
Yan Yan graduated from Columbia University in 2008 with degrees in English and religious studies. After working at the Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China, his hometown, he backpacked around the world and eventually settled down in Brooklyn, then the Hudson Valley. As a freelance translator, he translated works by Hans Christian Andersen Award-winner Cao Wenxuan, including the Dingding and Dangdang series, XiMi, and Mountain Goats Don’t Eat Heaven’s Grass, as well as updated editions of Grass House and Bronze Sunflower, for China Children’s Press & Publication Group. More recently, he has been translating works by the Chinese literary icon Wang Xiaobo, which include a novella collection titled Golden Age and an essay collection titled The Pleasure of Thinking.