The Clown Appears: Cui Zien's Queer Images

For over thirty years, Cui Zi'en has been a remarkable figure in Chinese culture. He is an openly gay man, a "surgical knife" who pursues his own path and refuses to be co-opted by the system, and a creator who perpetually challenges the contemporary world. His work spans diverse genres, fields, and media, from science fiction to family biography, from late Qing Dynasty novel research to independent film, and from avant-garde fiction to queer culture, demonstrating his unique independent spirit.

The conversations and exchanges collected in this book span nearly two decades, covering Cui Zien's diverse identities: author, director, researcher, university professor, Catholic, and gay rights activist. From Cui Zien's upbringing, representative works such as Night Scene and Yellow Flowers and Grass, the creation of documentaries, the rise of independent Chinese film, the queer movement in China, to the situation of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, The Clown Appears: Cui Zien's Queer Images presents Cui Zien's reflection and retrospection on his own creative career, and is also the best entry point to understanding the different aspects of Cui Zien's work.

This book is the second in the "Bai Ruiwen Interviews" series, which collects the essence of Bai Ruiwen's interviews with filmmakers, writers and cultural figures in the Chinese-speaking world over the years. The first book is "The Accent of Film: Jia Zhangke Talks about Jia Zhangke"; it is expected that the following books will be published: "Between the Lines: Conversations with Chinese-language Writers", "Free Light and Shadow: Conversations with Chinese Independent Filmmakers" and "Voiceover: Conversations with Contemporary Chinese-language Filmmakers".

Features of this book

"I am destined to be on the edge forever, and more on the edge, to oppose any god, any myth, any idol, and any mainstream." - Cui Zien

Renowned Chinese film scholar Bai Ruiwen's conversation with Chinese gay director/creator Cui Zien outlines the conflicts between Cui Zien's works and the country, society, culture and time and space. Break through all the doors and get out!

Recommended by all walks of life

Bao Hongwei (Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Nottingham, UK)
Dan Tangmo (well-known film critic and freelance writer)
Ji Dawei (author, scholar, and full-time associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature, National Chengchi University)
Guo Lixin (Cultural critic, full-time professor and dean of the School of Journalism at National Chengchi University)
Shu Qi (director, film critic)
Yang Xiaobin (poet, artist, critic, researcher at Academia Sinica)

2022-06-07

釀出版

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