Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Asia Society
725 Park Avenue (at East 70th Street), New York, NY
“Dearest Mu, I am writing to you from a place I cannot tell you about yet.” It is this mysterious note that sparks a translator’s interest in the living people buried in a hoard of Chinese letters and diaries which she has been commissioned to translate. With a fascination which borders on obsession the translator gradually unearths the story of an extraordinary but otherwise anonymous contemporary Chinese couple: the exiled underground Chinese rock musician Jian and his girlfriend Mu. Escaping political censure and personal secrets these lovers have crossed continents, from Parisian rock clubs to American college campuses and European immigrant detention centers, yearning to be reunited — and yet always seeming to travel further apart.
I Am China, Xiaolu Guo’s latest novel, is not only a compelling love story for our times but a meditation on exile and the uncertainties of modern life.
Join Xiaolu Guo for a conversation with Susan Jakes, Editor of ChinaFile and Senior Fellow at the Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society, on her work as a writer in Chinese and English and as a filmmaker. An accomplished director, Xiaolu Guo will also show short clips from her film work, including her recent documentary film about China’s newly merged social classes, Once Upon a Time Proletarian (Venice Film Festival, 2010), and her feature film, the political fable UFO in Her Eyes (Toronto Film Festival, 2012).
Followed by a book sale and signing.
For more information about the event, please visit:
http://asiasociety.org