December 2011

December 26, 2011

In December, 2011, Almost Island-Jintian held the third chapter of the India-China dialogues in Mumbai. There were closed door discussions in the day, and readings in the evenings, followed by a public discussion, The Scope and Limits of Dissent. The new participants in these dialogues were Han Shaogong, the Chinese novelist, and Adil Jussawalla, the poet. Otherwise, the same group reconvened—from the Chinese side, Bei Dao, Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, Li Tuo, Lydia Liu, Ge Fei, and interpreters Yurou Zhong and Wang Yan. From the Indian side I. Allan Sealy, K. Stachidanandan, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vivek Narayanan and Sharmistha Mohanty, and Ashis Nandy.

Discussions centred around autobiographies of some participating writers, the impact of Chinese classical poetry on contemporary Chinese literature, Tagore's relevance in India today through a discussion of his text The Essence of Words, as well as a discussion led by Ashis Nandy on the change in these two countries, and some frames through which to view those changes.