The Last Aristocrats

Kenneth Pai became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965, and retired in 1994. Pai is an internationally acclaimed author and founder of Modern Literature magazine. He is generally considered among the greatest living stylists of Chinese fiction and prose. His publications include the collections of short stories Lonely Seventeen, Taipei People, and The New Yorker; the collection of prose writing Suddenly the Past; and the novel Crystal Boys. Many of his stories have been adapted into films, TV and stage plays. In recent years he devoted his passion and energy to promote Chinese kun opera to the world. He is the general producer and artistic director of Peony Pavilion, which has toured China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S.

Michael Berry, formerly Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at UCSB, is now Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA. He is the author of Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers, A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film, Jia Zhangke’s Hometown Trilogy and Boiling the Sea: Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Memories of Shadows and Light. Berry is the translator of several novels and co-editor of Modernism Revisited (Rye Field, 2015) and Divided Lenses (Hawaii, 2016).