Qin Wenjun

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Qin Wenjun (秦文君; born 1954) is an author of children's literature. She writes in Chinese.

Life and work[edit]

Qin Wenjun was born in Shanghai in 1954. In 1971, as one of the educated youth sent to work in the rural China, Qin was sent to a forested area in Daxing'an Ling Prefecture, Heilongjiang province, in north-east China. Her first publication was a novella "Shining Fireflies" (《闪亮的萤火虫》) in 1981. In 1984 she graduated from East China Normal University's Department of language and literature, and then worked as an editor at the Shanghai Children's Press (少年儿童出版社). She is now Director-General of the Shanghai Board on Books for Young People (SHBBY, part of IBBY), Vice President of the Shanghai Writers Association, and a National Committee Member of the China Writers Association. Qin's novels have been adapted for films and TV series, and have attained China's highest honours for film and TV series. Her works have been translated into English, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, and other languages.

In the 1990s, Qin Wenjun also explored the use of humor in depicting a modern teenage subjectivity in Schoolboy Jia Li (1993), which has since sold over a million copies. Speaking at an IBBY conference in 2006,[1] Qin Wenjun detailed what she perceived as the key qualities of children's literature and in doing so defined the context in which contemporary Chinese children's literature represents subjectivity. … Based on her understanding of the reality of Chinese children's lives, Qin has made an important contribution to defending and protecting the value of both "children" and "literature". … She thus goes further than rejecting the 1970s production of subjectivity through dogmatic education and her original path has placed the literature on a solid foundation."

— John Stephens (2012)[2]

While drawing on deep Chinese traditions, she has also laid new foundations for young readers.[3]

Awards and honours (selection)[edit]

Books (selection)[edit]

Qin Wenjun has written over 50 books. The following translated titles are approximate:

  • 《我是花木兰》I am Hua Mulan, illustrated by Yu Rong (Reycraft Books, 2019)[6]
  • 《会跳舞的向日葵》 translated into English as Aroma's Little Garden by Tony Blishen (2016)[7][8]
  • 《天棠街3号》 translated into English as 3 Tian Tang Street by Wu Xiaozhen
  • Curly the Black Goat, Hoopy the White Goat
  • 《大狗喀啦克拉的公寓》 Smiling Kalakela
  • Jia Li at Junior High (English translation by Belinda Yun-ying Louie and Douglas Heung Louie, 1997) OCLC 55612582
  • 《男生贾里全传》 The Complete Story of Jia Li
  • 《一个女孩的心灵史》 The Mind of a Girl
  • 《逃逃》 Taotao
  • 《调皮的日子》
  • 《女生贾梅全传》
  • 《小丫林晓梅》
  • 《宝贝当家》
  • 《小香咕系列》
  • Girl at Sixteen

See also[edit]

  • Interview with Shanghai Daily, 28 December 2014.[9]
  • Qin Wenjun as a speaker at the Asian Festival of Children's Content, Singapore, 2015.[10]
  • Qin Wenjun - biography and nomination for prize[11]
  • Evaluating the work of Qin Wenjun, in Reading the World's Stories: An Annotated Bibliography of International Youth Literature edited by Annette Y. Goldsmith, Theo Heras, and Susan Corapi (Rowman & Littlefield, 11 Aug 2016), p. 17.[12]
  • "Context and contradiction in translating Aroma’s Little Garden, by Qin Wenjun" - by Tony Blishen.[8]

References[edit]

  1. ^ http://www.ibby.org/689.0.html [dead link]
  2. ^ John Stephens, Subjectivity in Asian Children's Literature and Film: Global Theories and Implications, Routledge 2012
  3. ^ "Qin Wenjun".
  4. ^ "Hans Christian Andersen Award Nominees 2018". Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 55 (4): 1–3. 2017. doi:10.1353/bkb.2017.0042.
  5. ^ "Flying Eye wins at Shanghai's Chen Bochui Awards".
  6. ^ "I am Hua Mulan | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
  7. ^ "Aroma's Little Garden - Tuttle Publishing". www.tuttlepublishing.com. Archived from the original on 2016-09-11.
  8. ^ a b "21. Context and contradiction in translating Aroma's Little Garden, by Qin Wenjun". 30 November 2016.
  9. ^ "Author Qin looks for fresh perspectives". 27 December 2014.
  10. ^ "Qin Wenjun 秦文君 | Speakers | AFCC 2015". afcc.com.sg. Archived from the original on 2016-11-29.
  11. ^ Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature Volume 46, Number 2, 2008 p. 19
  12. ^ Goldsmith, Annette Y.; Heras, Theo; Corapi, Susan (2016). Reading the world's stories : an annotated bibliography of international youth literature. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-7086-2. OCLC 951465396.
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