Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Australian Writers in China in the 1950s-1960s

Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Australian Writers in China in the 1950s-1960s
Griffith Asia Institute Research Seminar | Australian Writers in China in the 1950s-1960s

Principal speaker

Mr Li Jianjun, Senior Lecturer, School of English and International Studies and Director, Australian Studies Centre, Beijing Foreign Studies University

The 1950s-60s are a special period in China, when the newly established socialist country People's Republic of China was isolated from the major Western countries, Australia included. However, 23 novels, plays and collections of short stories by 11 Australian writers were translated into Chinese and published in China in that period. These writers included James Aldridge, Frank Hardy, Jack Lindsay, Judah Waten, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Dymphna Cusack, Ralph de Boissière, Mona Brand, Wilfred G. Burchett, Leslie Rees, and Henry Lawson among other social realist "progressive" writers.

In this presentation Mr Li will demonstrate why and how Australian writers were introduced into China and shed light on the cultural exchanges between Australia and China two decades earlier before the establishment of diplomatic relationship between the two countries in 1972. His talk will also examine whether the introduction of Australian literature into China was instrumental in laying a foundation for the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

Mr Li Jianjun is senior lecturer and director of the Australian Studies Centre at Beijing Foreign Studies University (2013-), secretary-general of the Chinese Association for Australian Studies (2014-), and managing editor of the Chinese Journal of Australian Studies published by the Social Sciences Academic Press (China). He was a visiting scholar at Griffith University in 2002 and a visiting research fellow at Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King's College London in 2016 and was a recipient of the BHP Billiton Australia China Scholarship in 2017. Currently he is a PhD candidate at the Western Sydney University's Writing and Society Research Centre, researching on Australian writers in China in the 1950s-60s.


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RSVP

RSVP on or before Monday 20 May 2019 , by email events-gai@griffith.edu.au , or by phone 07 3735 4705

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