Bonnie Huie is the translator of the late Qiu Miaojin’s groundbreaking ‘90s counterculture novel Notes of a Crocodile, for which she won a PEN Translation Fund Grant.
Bonnie Huie
Articles by Bonnie Huie
Friday October 12
On translating Qiu Miaojin
What makes Kerouac or Salinger timeless is not necessarily literary, but perhaps didactic: the fact that there is wisdom to be found at the fountain of youth, no matter what time one arrives. Of course, there is also a saintliness reserved for those authors who are able to make an interesting life story for themselves, and that order includes Qiu Miaojin.