Xiao Qian: Across Frontlines and Cultures

Today, we’ll talk about the life of Xiao Qian, a Chinese writer, war correspondent, translator and cultural ambassador whose words bridged China and the world across wars, revolutions, and a century of change.

Transcript

Xiao Qian: Across Frontlines and Cultures

Today, we’ll talk about the life of Xiao Qian, a Chinese writer, war correspondent, translator and cultural ambassador whose words bridged China and the world across wars, revolutions, and a century of change.

From December 5 to 7, the 2025 Youth Forum of the China World Association for Chinese Literature was held at Jinan University in Guangzhou, southern China’s Guangdong Province. Over 150 experts and scholars from more than 20 universities and research institutions at home and abroad attended the forum, engaging in in-depth discussions on the contemporary research value and methodological innovations of literature on the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.

The conference featured 13 keynote speeches, eight sub-forums, and four youth forums. Scholars presented on topics such as War of Resistance literature, cross-linguistic communication, diaspora experiences, ethnic narratives, world-historical perspectives, regional and national literature studies, reconstruction of cultural memory, and cross-media storytelling, providing rich insights and methodological guidance for the future development of Chinese diaspora and Chinese-language literature.

When discussing War of Resistance literature, many Chinese writers have created a large body of literary, journalistic, and film works to reflect this period of history. Today, we will focus on the story of one such figure – a journalist, writer, and translator – whose name is Xiao Qian.

In the bitter winter of 1910, Xiao Qian was born in Beijing into a declining Mongolian family. Orphaned at a young age – his father passed away about one month before he was born, and his mother died when he was only eight. Raised under the modest care of relatives, he navigated life amid scarcity and cold. In the narrow alleys of Beijing during frigid winters, young Xiao Qian would run just to keep warm. Hunger and chill became the most vivid memories of his childhood. Yet even amid these trials, he found refuge in the written word. Literature became his sanctuary, offering him a world beyond the stark reality around him.

In 1926, Xiao Qian took on an apprenticeship at Beixin Book Company, where he came into contact with the works of Lu Xun and began submitting articles to newspapers and magazines. The turning point of his life came when he enrolled at famed Yenching University in Beijing in 1929. There, he encountered a mentor who would shape his future profoundly: the American journalist Edgar Snow. Snow was compiling Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories and sought an assistant fluent in both Chinese and English.

Recognized for his exceptional linguistic talent, Xiao Qian was chosen. Through this work, he not only gained intimate access to the writings of Lu Xun, Mao Dun, and other modern Chinese writers, but also experienced firsthand the significance of cultural translation. 

In 1935, Xiao Qian graduated from the Journalism Department of Yenching University and subsequently served as the editor-in-chief of the literary supplements of Ta Kung Pao in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

In 1939, Xiao Qian traveled to the United Kingdom at the invitation of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, now the School of Oriental and African Studies, to serve as a lecturer in the Chinese Department while also working as the London correspondent for Ta Kung Pao. In 1942, he entered King’s College, Cambridge, to pursue a master’s degree in English literature. The following year, as World War II intensified, he resolutely abandoned his degree studies to become Ta Kung Pao’s full-time special correspondent and war reporter in the UK.

During his time in Britain, Xiao Qian, together with figures such as Hsiung Shih-I and Chiang Yee, actively participated in the China Campaign Committee, engaging in efforts to support China’s resistance against Japanese aggression. Through these activities, he became acquainted with several core members of the committee, including Dorothy Woodman (1902-1970), Kingsley Martin (1897-1969), and Margery Fry (1874-1958). With their assistance, Xiao Qian toured the British Isles, delivering hundreds of lectures on wartime China. He also wrote a series of feature articles – including London Under Silver Kites, Symphony of Contradictions, Blood-Red September, and A Week in London – which reported to Chinese readers on the resilience, optimism, and humor of the British people in the face of national crisis.

In addition, he published five works in English, later collectively referred to as the “Five British Works”: Etching of a Tormented Age: A Glimpse of Contemporary Chinese Literature (1942), China but not Cathay (1943), The Dragon Beards Versus the Blueprints: Meditations on Post-war Culture (1944), A Harp with a Thousand Strings (1944), and Spinners of Silk (1944). These works addressed themes such as “how wartime China could achieve victory and how postwar China could rebuild,” systematically presenting the realities of China’s war effort and its postwar vision. 

On February 26, 1942, at the invitation of George Orwell (1903-1950), Xiao Qian gave a lecture titled “Japan and the New Order” at the British Broadcasting Corporation (commonly known as the BBC). On March 5 of the same year, he delivered another lecture entitled “It Happened in Occupied China.” Both broadcasts exposed the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders in China and aroused British public sympathy for China’s struggle in the war.

From 1944 to 1946, Xiao Qian, serving as Ta Kung Pao’s special correspondent in Europe, reported to Chinese readers on the realities of the European battlefields during World War II. Braving the dangers of war, he crossed the English Channel multiple times with the British army and advanced along the Rhine River with American forces. After the Allied forces entered Berlin, he was among the first journalists to enter the city, witnessing firsthand the collapse of the Third Reich.

In the postwar period, he covered major historical events such as the founding conference of the United Nations, the Potsdam Conference, and the Nuremberg Trials. Drawing on his eyewitness experiences, he produced a large number of war reports, passionately denouncing Hitler’s fascist atrocities and celebrating the heroic achievements of European peoples in resisting fascism. His reports provided great encouragement to Chinese soldiers and civilians who continued to fight in the war.

Back in China, he served as deputy editor of the English edition of People’s China and deputy director of the editorial department of Translation magazine. In 1956, he founded the English edition of Literature and Art Newspaper, introducing overseas audiences systematically to the literary and artistic achievements of the new China. He carefully selected works such as Zhao Shuli’s Xiao Erhei Gets Married and Zhou Libo’s The Hurricane, translating them with an eye toward accurately portraying the social transformations within Chinese society.

During politically sensitive periods, Xiao Qian’s overseas experience brought him professional setbacks, forcing him into years of enforced inactivity. Yet even in these dark times, he secretly maintained his habit of reading in English, convinced that the era of cultural exchange would eventually return. Following China’s reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, Xiao Qian, now approaching seventy, reemerged as a central figure in the literary world and was appointed director of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, where he displayed remarkable vitality and creativity.

In the early 1980s, together with his wife, Wen Jieruo, Xiao Qian undertook the formidable task of translating James Joyce’s Ulysses into Chinese. Renowned for its complexity and challenging stream-of-consciousness style, the novel had daunted many translators before them. To conquer this literary summit, the couple assembled over a dozen reference materials and annotations, filling their workspace with dictionaries and scholarly books. Rising at five o’clock each morning, they would spend hours debating the meaning of a single passage. Xiao Qian innovatively combined translation with explanatory notes, preserving literary elegance while providing cultural context for Chinese readers. In 1994, the three-volume Chinese translation of Ulysses was published to immediate acclaim, with its first printing of 30,000 copies selling out quickly.

Simultaneously, Xiao Qian oversaw the compilation of the Foreign Literature Classics Series and personally translated works such as Peer Gynt and The Good Soldier Svejk. His translation philosophy was distinctive: literature should be faithful to the original while respecting the aesthetic qualities of the Chinese language, rejecting rigid literalism. During this period, he also emerged as an important cultural ambassador between China and the United States. In August 1979, at the invitation of Nieh Hualing and her husband, directors of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, he traveled to the United States to take part in Sino-foreign literary exchange activities. He was also invited to give a series of lectures at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, the University of Wisconsin, and other American universities.

On February 11, 1999, Xiao Qian passed away in Beijing, concluding nearly a century of life. He left behind not only a voluminous body of work and translations but also a model for cultural dialogue. During the critical years of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, his contributions were particularly significant: he was not merely a war correspondent but an international communicator; he documented not just conflict but human resilience; he recorded history while shaping its perception. Through his humanistic international reporting, the world witnessed a China that was resilient, civilized, and unyielding – a testament to the extraordinary power of words in extraordinary times.

In today’s world, where globalization faces challenges and dialogue among civilizations has become increasingly urgent, Xiao Qian’s cross-century cultural journey offers profound lessons. His life demonstrates that genuine cultural exchange can transcend political divides, that human empathy can cross geographical boundaries, and that understanding always begins with sincere listening and storytelling. While his old spectacles remain quietly on his Beijing desk, the larger unfinished project – building a bridge between Chinese and Western cultures – awaits new successors. This literary envoy, who traversed a century of storms, leaves us with a lasting truth: no matter how the world changes, dialogue is always superior to conflict, and understanding will always triumph over misunderstanding.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Zhu Haifeng, translator Du Guodong, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.