Trailing Ulysses: from Shanghai to Dublin

As a student in Shanghai in the 1990s,Ulysses was the only novel that Chen Danyan struggled to finish. Decades later, unable to let go of the task, she followed the book to Ireland where it bloomed in the bookshops and pubs of Dublin, filtered through the distance of time and Joyce’s indelible legacy. Chen Danyan joins Duncan Campbell to talk about her love of “geographical reading” — coming to know places through books, and books through places.

“I could see my own body as it walked in the real streets, but another self, an invisible self formed by my consciousness, separated itself from my body, walking in streets built of words.” — Danyan Chen, The Day of Galloping Thoughts: A geographical reading of Ulysses. 

This conversation will take place in Mandarin and English, with live interpretation provided by a translator.