Michael Berry's translations make contemporary Chinese fiction accessible to Americans
UCLA professor Michael Berry has translated 11 Chinese-language works of fiction, three of which were published in early 2025. Among them is “Dead Souls,” the last book in the “Hospital Trilogy” by one of China's most celebrated science fiction writers, Han Song, and two novels by Chinese novelist Fang Fang: “Soft Burial” and “The Running Flame.”
Berry’s most recent translations build on his extensive body of work — scholarly cultural history, translations of Chinese-language novels and books on (and interviews with) Chinese filmmakers — all of which make contemporary Chinese culture more accessible to American audiences.
A professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies and director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, Berry spent five years translating Han’s trilogy, with a Guggenheim Fellowship supporting his work on “Dead Souls,” which was published in January. The two newest Fang Fang translations were published in March, in part supported by a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship.
In a recent op-ed on artificial intelligence in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Berry said the three Han novels were one of the more difficult projects he had ever undertaken, in part because he chose material that could not be translated by an AI translation platform.
Read more about Berry’s most recent translations and their contemporary significance on the UCLA International Institute’s website.