The 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English is held at ECNU from July 13 to 16.
The 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, taking place at ECNU from July 13 to 16, brought over 200 globally well-known writers together with scholars of short stories from nearly 20 countries.
With the theme “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: West and East”, the biennial meeting, which was organized by the Society for the Study of Short Stories in English, is the only international conference on short stories in the world.
ECNU was the first Asian venue for the conference.
Prof. Tong Shijun.
Morris A Li
Tong Shijun, chairman of ECNU University Council, and Morris A Li, chairman of the conference, delivered opening speeches at the conference, which was co-sponsored by the Shanghai Press Bureau, Shanghai Writers Association and ECNU, and undertaken by ECNU School of Foreign Languages.
Among the honored guests from abroad were Gish Jen, a contemporary American writer of Chinese origin; Robert Olen Butler, an American fiction writer; Clark Blaise, a Canadian-American author; Bharati Mukherjee, an American writer and critic; Billy O'Callaghan, an Irish author; and Chinese American writer Yiyun Li. Famous Chinese writers, including Yu Hua, Bi Feiyu, Su Tong, Fang Fang, Zhao Mei, Xu Kun, Sun Ganlu and Lu Nei, also attended the meeting.
Prestigious writters and scholars exchange views during the conference.
The attendees communicated with each other on an array of topics, such as short story writing and criticism, differences between the West and East on literature and culture, writing characteristics and influence of short stories, translation and communication of short stories, short story education and research, the role of short stories in modern literature, as well as the ties between the origin of contemporary Chinese short stories and Western literature.
Reading sessions were a highlighted event of the conference, which were held every day during the four-day meeting. During the sessions, the attendees read stories aloud.
ECNU Press published collections of works by the writers attending the conference, including “Influence and Confluence£º East and West in English ”，“Coming Across in the Global Village”in both Chinese and English, and “Classics of Short Stories in Chinese”.
Wang Yan, head of the Press, believed the publications will be conducive to the exchanges of Chinese and foreign short story writers and making Chinese writers better known to the world.
