That We May Live: Dorothy Tse and Natascha Bruce in conversation
Virtual Event
Surreal stories for a surreal time. Hong Kong surrealist writer Dorothy Tse and translator Natascha Bruce join Calico editor Sarah Coolidge to talk about That We May Live.
That We May Live, the first book in the brand-new Calico Series, brings you work by some of today’s most exciting writers from China and Hong Kong, including Dorothy Tse (tr. Natascha Bruce), Zhu Hui (tr. Michael Day), and Enoch Tam (tr. Jeremy Tiang). Lightly touching on issues of urbanization, sexuality, and propaganda, the collection builds a world both utterly disorienting and disturbing familiar, prompting the question: Where does reality end and absurdity begin in a world pushed to its very limits?
This event is presented by The Center for Literary Arts of San Jose and will be streamed live on Facebook(opens in a new tab) and Instagram(opens in a new tab).
Dorothy Tse is a writer from Hong Kong. Her debut novel, Owlish, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, and her short story collection, Snow and Shadow, was longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award. A cofounder of the literary journal Fleurs des Lettres, she has received the Hong Kong Book Prize, the Hong Kong Biennial Award for Chinese Literature, and Taiwan’s Unitas New Fiction Writers’ Award. Her novel City Like Water came out with Graywolf Press in March 2026.
Natascha Bruce translates from Chinese. Her work includes Lonely Face by Yeng Pway Ngon (shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize), Bloodline by Patigül, Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong (shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation), A Classic Tragedy by Xu Xiaobin (co-translated with Nicky Harman), and Mystery Train by Can Xue. She was awarded a 2021 PEN/Heim grant for Owlish by Dorothy Tse. She and Tse were among the winners of the 2019 Words Without Borders Poems in Translation Contest.
Sarah Coolidge (they/she) is a queer editor and musician based in Oakland. They have worked at the Center for over a decade, serving as editor of the Two Lines journal before launching the Calico Series in 2020. They’ve had the honor of working with countless translators they admire and have edited work by Mariana Enriquez, Iman Mersal, Pirkko Saisio, Dorothy Tse, Wilson Bueno, and Elena Garro, among others.