November 2009

The Almost Island Dialogues: Three, was held in New Delhi's India International Centre, from Feb. 12-15, 2009. This was an unusual, and indeed, historical dialogue between writers from China and India. Said K. Satchidanandan, "The interactions we have with our Chinese counterparts in a formal setting are organised by our governments. We seldom see the real contemporary face of Chinese literature because writers who are not spokespersons of the state are seldom part of their official delegation." He said he considers the Almost Island Dialogues to be "India's first unofficial yet formal literary meet between India and China". "This is not a discussion between two countries but an encounter between two civilizations," said Ashis Nandy.

The idea was proposed by Chinese poet Bei Dao. Over a year, these dialogues were planned by him and Sharmistha Mohanty – the writers who would participate, and the kinds of discussions that could be made possible. The Chinese writers, each one outstanding, were Ge Fei, a novelist, poets Xi Chuan, Ouyang Jianghe, Zhai Yongming, the critic Li Tuo, and Bei Dao. They are all associated with Jintian (Today) a leading literature journal, established by Bei Dao and others in 1978--the first non-official literary magazine in China since the 1950s.

The Indian writers were Kunwar Narain, K. Stachidanandan, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vinod Kumar Shukla, Joy Goswami, Irwin Allan Sealy, Vivek Narayanan, and Sharmistha Mohanty. They were joined by Ashis Nandy, who chaired two of the three discussion sessions.

The evening readings were, as always, bilingual. This time one heard Chinese, Bengali, Hindi, English and Malayalam.

A report of these Dialogues, an interview with Ashis Nandy, diaries and essays on the trip, by the Chinese writers, were published in Jintian, edited by Bei Dao, in November 2009.