That Which Can't Be Washed Away

Xu Huaizhong is a writer and retired general born in Hebei province in 1929. He joined the military in 1945, where he was in charge of cultural works, and was awarded the rank of Major General in 1988. His first novel, We Sow Love, was published in 1956. Leading Wave is his best-known work, for which he won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 2019. Haiwang Yuan is Professor Emeritus at Western Kentucky University in the US, and Guest Professor of English at Nankai University, China. He is a writer, translator and translation consultant. He has authored and co-authored many books, including Tibetan Folktales, Tales from the Other Peoples of China, The Magic Lotus Lantern, Other Tales from the Han Chinese and This is China: The First 5,000 Years. Among two dozen of his translations are Songs from the Forest, There is a Fish in the Desert, Open-Air Cinema and Illustrated Stories of Chinese Characters for Children. He has consulted on the translation of two Sinoist Books titles. Will Spence is a freelance literary translator based in London. Works he has translated include The Promise: Love and Loss in Modern China by Xinran and China Adorned: Ritual and Custom of Ancient Cultures, an encyclopaedia of the fashion, adornment, and rituals of Chinese ethnic minority groups. He has lectured on translation practice and theory at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China.