Wolfgang Kubin

media - Critical Sinologist trashed by ignorant media

ESWN gets his hands on a very critical interview with the German Sinologist Wolfgang Kubin who is rather critical about China's Writers Association and its election of a new chairperson:

In any case, it can be said that all of the Chinese writers that I know hold the Writers Association in contempt. For us Sinologists, it is a matter of indifference if there is a new chairperson for the Writers Association.

He is equally outspoken about the 20th century writers themselves. He divides them up in the pre-1949 ones - who spoke and wrote in foreign languages - and the post-1949 who lost direct contact with foreign literature. Mian Mian and Wei Hui he does not appreciate:

You must be joking. That is not literature. That is trash.

A row emerges as some Chinese media mix up the original text and claim that the Sinologist said all Chinese literature was trash. It is bad when Chinese writers cannot read foreign literature directly, it is even worse when Chinese journalists cannot read their own language.