Foreign writers weave the city into their stories
Seven foreign writers, here for a two-month Shanghai Writing Program, have intricately incorporated the city into their literary works in various formats.
Initiated in 2008, the annual residency program has accommodated 107 writers from 39 countries since then.
With Emmi Itaranta’s participation this year, Finland became the 39th country to join the program. In 2012, her debut novel, “Memory of Water,” caught the attention of a Chinese professor of Finnish. Twelve years later, Itaranta made it to Shanghai.
This year’s residency program also had a foreign writer who spoke fluent Chinese.
“This is a homecoming for me,” Vietnamese author and screenwriter Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi said in Chinese.
“I have experienced challenging periods in my personal life, which hindered my ability to write for some time. In Shanghai, I have discovered inspiration and recommenced writing. Isn’t that what matters most to us writers?”
This year, most writers had previous experience in China, either through their works or visits. Shanghai Daily spoke to them to understand what more they have found in the long stay.
Emilio Fraia, Brazil
Shanghai is a city with layers.
Brazilian writer and editor Emilio Fraia described his first day in Shanghai as “crazy” and “impossible.” Jetlagged, he took the Metro and went straight to a bookstore on the 52nd floor of the 632-meter Shanghai Tower.
The flagship store of Duoyun Books, known for “books above the cloud” or as the tallest bookstore in the city, was a spontaneous destination for the literary newcomer.
“I don’t know why I did that on the first day,” he recalled. “But I’ve traveled a lot and visited many bookstores wherever I go. When you visit a bookstore, you gain a glimpse into the true nature of the people from that city. What are their relationships with books? It’s a way to get to know the people.”
He believes that both the more commercial bookstores found in upscale malls or business districts and the small independent ones hidden downtown capture the essence of the city and its people.
The most impressive is the Sinan Books Poetry Store, devoted entirely to poetry and an unexpected gift for Fraia, who loves poetry.
He has begun writing a book about loss and love, where the female protagonist embarks on two trips at different stages of her life. He may set the second trip in China, while the first one takes place in Italy.
“It’s a unique opportunity to get to know the city here and the atmosphere of the places,” he said.
Shanghai is a city with layers, boasting a multitude of diverse aspects and monuments from various eras, which can be recognized through layers of architecture, including Art Deco buildings throughout the city, Fraia said.
“Then you have a future city like the skyscrapers in other places in the city. When all these elements are combined in one city, it’s a feeling of ambiguity. It prompts you to envision the journeys of those who came before us. What did they want in this city? The story of Shanghai is one of openness.”
Peter Simon Altmann, Austria
It's not just my story, but the story of the city.
Peter Simon Altmann, who describes himself as a “big fan of Asia,” has lived in Japan and South Korea for a total of three years, is fluent in Japanese and draws inspiration from Asian culture in three of his 11 published books.
This is also his third residency program in China, following three months in Shanghai in 2017 and a month in Beijing in 2019.
“I come from a family of engineers, and we always look at houses. Shanghai will be a paradise for my father,” he said. “When you study architecture, you have to come to Shanghai.”
The cover of his novel “The Other” is a picture of Shanghai. The protagonist in Shanghai traces the footsteps of French naval doctor and ethnographer Victor Segalen (1878-1919). Segalen, also a writer and linguist, traveled and lived in China between 1909 and 1914 and again in 1917, resulting in a variety of books and photo albums.
Altmann, also interested in linguistic aspects, used Chinese calligraphy as a significant element in his other novel “The Sign Catcher.”
“The European languages are phonetic. It’s fascinating for me to see how you describe people and stuff,” he explained. “Your language is hieroglyphic, which visually brings the character closer to its actual meaning.”
He added: “It also inspires people to see things from different perspectives,” citing the Chinese character for females as an example. The early form of the character resembles one who is kneeling, often interpreted as reflecting the lower social status of women in ancient China.
But Altmann has also learned it may just be the female kneeling to pray in some kind of ritual, which could mean women were more powerful in those times than previously imagined.
Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi, Vietnam
A writer must find inspiration in this place. I get inspired in Shanghai.
Nguyen Khac Ngan Vi compares her relationship with Shanghai to a long-term romantic relationship.
“Melancholy,” she explained.
“You love this place as much as you love someone. When the relationship first begins, everything feels fresh, and you accept it out of love. After a while, you notice what you don’t like and wonder why he can’t be perfect like when we met? At the same time, you realize you are still deeply in love.”
After a trip to China, the author and screenwriter decided to learn Chinese and pursue her master’s degree in Shanghai. In 2018, she started her master’s program in comparative literature at the School of Chinese Language and Literature at Fudan University and had to defend her thesis remotely due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
“This is a homecoming for me,” she said. “The city has undergone significant changes, yet this place inspires me and allows me to write. Isn’t that the most crucial aspect for a writer? This place has a unique culture and vibe.”
She is currently working on a novel about the disconnection between people and their origins, specifically “the break in the succession of generations of men in my country after a war,” she added.
“What will the men of the next generation be like?”
Disconnection is a theme she follows in all her novels, from disconnection with love in her debut work to disconnection with mega-urban development in “The Myriad Colors of Emptiness,” her award-winning third novel.
“I do not try to explain or illustrate the disconnection,” she said. “Put people close together to create disconnection, automatically.”
Fuat Sevimay, Turkey
It's important to have places where people, whoever they are, can gather and share ideas, just like Fuxing Park, Suzhou Creek, or the Bund in Shanghai.
Fuat Sevimay has fallen in love with Shanghai, especially the Puxi side, so much so that he has destroyed the skyscraper-abundant Pudong in a short story he wrote during the residency.
“The writers die, seeds preserved, plants reconquered the world, and skyscrapers all gone,” he summarized the short story, laughing.
“Overall, I don’t like skyscrapers. The Fuxing Park, Suzhou Creek and all these neighborhoods in Puxi remind us that this is life. Skyscrapers, that’s not life.”
The protagonist of Yan Lianke’s novella “Years, Months, and Days,” an old man who battles to revive dying corn seeds during a famine, serves as the inspiration for the sci-fi story.
“Yan is well translated in Turkish, and I have read a lot of his novels,” he said. “He always seems to be telling much deeper stories under the actual plot of the novel.”
The Turkish writer and translator particularly appreciates places like Suzhou Creek and the parks where people gather and interact with each other, just like the grand bazaar in his hometown Istanbul. He has written a novel with the title “Grand Bazaar of Istanbul.”
“The idea of the novel is a marketplace that gathers us together, regardless of our lifestyles, social status, gender or belief,” he explained.
“I want to remind people of such places, just like Fuxing Park in Shanghai or the Bund or the Nanjing Road pedestrian mall — the places where we gather and share ideas face-to-face on whatever topics.”
Risa Wataya, Japan
I really like China, which is why I set the story here. It's the only time I have stories set outside of Japan.
Risa Wataya won the Akutagawa Award at the age of 19. She remains the youngest writer to win the award and has since welcomed both acceptance and higher expectations from publishers and readers.
“Residency programs like this — where you spend two months rather than just a short trip at a place — make it possible to get to know the place and maybe write about it,” she said.
“I planned to have a story set in Shanghai once I learned the program lasts two months.”
She previously spent a winter in Beijing, leading to a novel featuring a Japanese woman in her late 30s. She plans to write a sequel set in Shanghai.
“Shanghai is even more intriguing in many aspects, especially the fact that it has a large Japanese presence,” she explained.
“I hope my readers can get to know the real and more updated China through my books. When we arrived, we were surprised by the lack of comprehensive and up-to-date information about China in Japan, despite its proximity.”
She used her tour journal on Shanghai as an example, with the most recent edition published way back in 2019.
“Five years may not sound too long,” she added. “But for China — for Shanghai, that’s quite outdated. A lot has changed.”
Emmi Itaranta, Finland
This city looks like it's from a sci-fi movie.
Emmi Itaranta considers the tea ceremony near their residence a highlight of the program. It’s her first experience of the Chinese tea ceremony, although she knew about it from resources she could find many years ago.
It was done for the research of her debut novel, “Memory of Water,” which was published in 2012 and has since been translated into more than 20 languages and a film adaptation of “The Guardian of Water” (2022).
“I wanted to write about climate change and talk about it from the point of view of water,” she recalled. “Water is, of course, a very important element for the tea culture.”
The story is about the post-climate-change future world where fresh water is difficult to access. The protagonist is a young woman studying to be a tea master. The families of tea masters all share a secret — they protect a fountain through generations.
The novel intrigued Finnish language professor Li Ying at Beijing International Studies University, who translated it into Chinese. Li has also subsequently introduced the Shanghai Writing Program to Itaranta.
“And now here I am, and I got my first experience of a Chinese tea ceremony in week six,” she said.
“I’m really surprised to see how green Shanghai is, as my expectation was a more concrete city. Looking out of the window of a car, the scale of the architecture and the shiny tall buildings in unusual shapes make this city seem like something out of a sci-fi movie.”
Zornitsa Garkova, Bulgaria
I see Shanghai in vertical layers, and the platanus orientalis creates the first layer of this urban forest.
Zornitsa Garkova, a writer and botanical illustrator, frequently incorporates plants and nature into her works. She is also the author and speaker of the Sunday radio show “Sunrise” on Bulgarian national radio dedicated to agriculture.
Her current novel, “The Wardian Case,” takes its name from Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward’s (1791-1868) promotion of a sealed protective container for plants. Such cases were of great use to protect foreign plants when moving between different countries.
Her novel is told in letters exchanged by two main characters. One of them is a female agricultural expert traveling around the world to save plants.
“So it’s indeed fitting to be here in Shanghai, far away from home, writing the letters,” she said.
“I was shocked by Shanghai’s verticality. You see different layers in the city, and the most memorable plant here for me is the platanus orientalis. They are all over the lower part of the city and create the first layer of this urban forest, so ancient, so beautiful and so well-maintained.”