Dialogue: Su Tong & Ouyang Jianghe in Charles University

Su Tong & Ouyang Jianghe share their oppinions about Chinese literature, relations between society and literature, reading classic in Charles University.

Su Tong is the pen name of Chinese writer Tong Zhonggui He was born in Suzhou and lives in Nanjing.

He entered the Department of Chinese at Beijing Normal University in 1980, and started to publish novels in 1983. He is now vice president of the Jiangsu Writers Association. Known for his controversial writing style, Su is one of the most acclaimed novelists in China.

Works

Su has written seven full-length novels and over 200 short stories, some of which have been translated into English, German, Italian and French.

He is best known in the West for his book Wives and Concubines, published in 1990.

The book was adapted into the film Raise the Red Lantern.

His other works available in English translation are Rice, My Life as Emperor, Binu and the Great Wall, Madwoman on the Bridge and Other Stories, Tattoo: Three Novellas and The Boat to Redemption.

His novel Hongfen, about two Shanghai prostitutes at the time of Liberation in 1949, has been adapted to two films: Li Shaohong's Blush (1994), and Huang Shuqin's Rouged Beauties(1995)

In 2009, he was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize for his work The Boat to Redemption, the second Chinese writer to win the prize.[6]

In 2011, Su Tong was nominated to win the Man Booker International Prize.

In 2015, he was a co-winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize for Yellowbird Story.

He has been influenced by writers such as William Faulkner, J.D Salinger, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.