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Contributor

Karen Gernant

Contributor

Karen Gernant

United States

Karen Gernant, professor emerita of Chinese history at Southern Oregon University, translates contemporary Chinese fiction in collaboration with Chen Zeping....

Among their translations are Can Xue’s Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories (New Directions, 2006); Five Spice Street (Yale University Press, 2009); Vertical Motion (Open Letter Books, 2011); and Frontier (Open Letter, 2017), as well as Eleven Contemporary Chinese Writers (Turnrow Books, 2010); Zhang Kangkang’s White Poppies and Other Stories (Cornell East Asia Series, 2011); and Alai’s Tibetan Soul (MerwinAsia, 2012).

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Articles by Karen Gernant

“The Fair-haired Princess” and Serious Literature

An advanced modern reader acts like a detective.

Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping

Multilingual

The Old Cicada

He saw the leering youth approach.

Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping

LearnMultilingual

About the Young Writer Zheng Xialou

Zheng Xiaolu, editor of a literary magazine, is only twenty-five years old. He was probably twenty-two when he wrote this story.

Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping

The Festival of Ghosts

By Zheng Xiaolou

On the evening of the tenth day of the seventh lunar month, we “invited” all the ancestors to our home.

Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping

Multilingual

The Bane of My Existence

“Can Xue doesn’t trust reason.”—Ha Jin

Translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping