Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Chinese Walnut Biscuits

10 Questions for ... Chen Danyan

This article appears in media partnership with the Sino-German cultural network -cn.net . In its "Ten Questions to ..." tell-known figures in German and Chinese cultural life about their personal connection to the other country. The writer Chen Danyan told in the interview from its relations with Germany.

Chen Danyan The writer, born in a
958 published already as a student first literary texts. From 1978 to 1982 she studied Chinese literature at the Eastern China Normal University and worked after graduation as an editor of the Children's Epoch magazine.

Danyan Chen is one of the few Chinese writers, dealing mainly with young people and their feelings. Her stories and novels have been in China many times awarded literary prizes. Great Success was the German translation of her book about the childhood of a girl in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution, which in 1995 under the title Nine Lives: A childhood in Shanghai appeared in a translation by Barbara Wang. It received several awards in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and 1997, the UNESCO Prize for Children's Literature in the Service of Tolerance.

Another important topic for Chen Danyan is traveling. 'Strong wanderlust led her often to Europe - 2001 as a guest of the international literature festival berlin - but also brought them to an intensive study of her home city of Shanghai and its European influences. In September 2010 the author presented at the invitation of the Confucius Institute Hamburg as part of CHINA TIME her new book on the history of the Shanghai Federation ago with its colonial architecture. Another date to follow on 9 November 2010: Chen Danyan is invited for the event series of meetings in 2010 China to Oldenburg.


1) What you have studied in recent times?

With the completion of a travel book in which I deal with my daughter's notes from our travels together. We started with the records when she was eight years old and then lifted up before this year was the university degree for my daughter and we the time after deliberating over a bridge year. Since we realized that traveling had accompanied their growing up. And so we have arranged to travel over the summer and are now working to make a book out of it, even to parents who take their children on the road today have to share our experiences from all these years.

2) When and how did you first come into contact with Germany?

In the spring of 1992 I first came to Germany as a Visiting Scientist at the International Youth Library in Munich. At that time I traveled through Germany, made the acquaintance with German culture and made friends that are still . Continue

3) In what way has influenced the encounter with Germany, your work or your life?

Germany is the first European country that I have traveled extensively and with whom I came into contact. That my novel, Nine Lives was published in German, was not a merit of the last German translator. For the German edition of this book to me a UNESCO Prize for Literature was awarded in three German-speaking countries and I got first and second prizes. I was very encouraged.

The experiences I had made while living and working in Germany, I realized that I am a man of great passion for driving. So I started to travel around every year for a time in the world, and I visited most European countries. It made me realize that for my generation, who spent her youth in a society isolated from the outside world, European culture had a very sustainable and far-reaching influence, they have affected us deeply, it makes this generation almost unique.

4) What was your best experience in Germany?

case of a reading night in a Freiburg bookstore once asked me a reader, why you could feel in my work as strong echoes of the Russian literature. At that time I had the feeling that this German Readers my books really understood and perceived the mood was that my personal experiences and the reading preferences of my youth have left in my work. has the same question I have only found one of my fellow students at the university, which later became the editor of my books. That evening I noticed that my German readers may be close.

5) What was your most unpleasant experience in Germany?

When I had fought in Berlin with my friend and me alone so made their way home. I took the wrong exit in the subway and promptly got lost. At that time I felt very lonely.

6) Do you have a favorite German food?

Cold meatballs with brown bread.

7) What do you consider "typically German"?

The so unconventional thinking and serious wrinkles in the region between the eyebrows, this serious and brooding face.

8) What cultural achievement from Germany impressed you most?

The serious themes in the literature.

9) Who would you like to swap in Germany one day?

with a waiter in a coffee house in Berlin-Mitte. There, I worked on my books, friends made, eaten, I made notes, Journalists given interviews and sorted my feelings and thoughts. In short, for me was the time I spent there lot, very useful. The noise in these coffee houses, is familiar to me, and I love their potato soup. I've always painted, even to work as a waitress, wearing a long black waiter apron, casual and fast at the same time. In this job I would be quite at home.

10) What habit or idea from Germany would like to take you in China?

That one night can also sometimes eat something very simple.

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