Any suffering registered in your mind makes the emotion deeper. Maybe as a writer, I am constantly looking for tragedy. - Geling Yan

I think Chinese is a difficult language to translate. Every time a draft translation of my work lands on my desk, I read it as if it were someone else’s work. I think I have the ability to stay detached and read my own work objectively, because when I read a translation draft, I rarely compare a sentence or a paragraph with my original work. The only time I do is when I discover a passage that doesn’t sound right. I don’t nitpick. It’s unfortunate that Chinese is a such a unique language, with origins so different from Western languages, so every time I read a translation, I feel something is lost, some of the strength or color.

What makes me choose to write a particular story as fiction only depends on how interesting the story is and how much literary and aesthetic value I can see in it. In China, I don’t believe there are enough good literature and artistic works of aesthetic value that have been created on this war. So far, most are just crass propaganda. Literature doesn’t stop war, but it helps us understand what war can do to human hearts, and what worst or best behaviors war can trigger from us.

As I mentioned previously, on the internet everyone enjoys being nameless, having the privilege and protection of anonymity. It is like a person hiding in a crowd; if the crowd curses, he curses along with it, and only by cursing along with it does he feel safe. But if he doesn’t curse along with it, he loses the crowd’s protection and is not safe. On the internet many people tell the truth, or attack others, or curse others, anonymously, thinking that if they can disappear into the vast ocean of the anonymous crowd they can feel safe.