Paper Cuts
Paper Cuts
By Leung Ping Kwan
Translated by Brian Holton
2015
160 pages
ISBN 978-962-7255-42-0
Paper Cuts, Leung Ping Kwan’s (Ye Si) landmark work of Hong Kong literature, first appeared in 1977 and has been much read and commented upon ever since. A novel that brings into being the dizzying topography of life in the fast-moving and ever-changing city, it features arresting meditations on the nature of subjectivity, personal relationships, the media world, art and culture, and above all conveys a profound sense of the bewildering pace of change in the modern city. In a virtuoso translation by Brian Holton which does full justice to the rich style of the original, this book is a major contribution to contemporary Asian literature.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Translator's Foreword — 7
Chapter One — 11
Chapter Two — 19
Chapter Three — 26
Chapter Four — 42
Chapter Five — 62
Chapter Six — 78
Chapter Seven — 89
Chapter Eight — 105
Chapter Nine — 113
Chapter Ten — 138
Chapter Eleven — 143
Chapter Twelve — 149
Appendix: Afterword to First Edition — 154
About the Author and the Translator — 160
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AUTHOR(s)
Leung Ping Kwan 梁秉鈞 (1949–2013, also known by his pen name Ye Si 也斯) was a renowned poet, novelist, translator, and cultural figure in Hong Kong. He worked for various newspapers and periodicals before he became an academic at the University of Hong Kong, and later the Chair Professor of Comparative Literature in the Department of Chinese and Director of the Centre for Humanities Research at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He was the author of many volumes of poetry, fiction, and essays, and was the first to introduce French New Fiction and Latin American fiction to Hong Kong and Taiwan readers in the early 1970s. He was also the recipient of the Thumb's Poetry Award in 1983 and the inaugural Hong Kong Biennial Awards for Chinese Literature (Fiction) in 1991.
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TRANSLATOR(s)
Brian Holton was born in the Scottish Borders, spent his early years in Nigeria, and was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham. He taught classical and modern Chinese language and literature, as well as translation in Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Durham, and at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has published many translations, including a dozen books of poetry by Yang Lian 楊煉, and is the only Chinese-Scots translator in captivity: in Spring 2016 Shearsman Books will publish Staunin Ma Lane, his selection of Chinese poetry in Scots. He has read at literary festivals in the UK, Europe, and the Far East, held translation workshops in the UK, the USA, and Europe, and held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Bogliasco Foundation, Genoa. Brian Holton has retired from teaching, and now lives in Melrose, where he plays traditional music, and sings the songs of his native Borders.