Michael Berry

A photo of Michael Berry
E-mail: berry@humnet.ucla.edu Office: Royce 246-B

Michael Berry is Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is also the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Film, TV, and Media. Previously, he was Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and Director of the East Asia Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and his areas of research include modern and contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese cinema, popular culture in modern China, and translation studies.

Berry is the author of A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (Columbia University Press, 2008; Rye Field, 2017), which explores literary and cinematic representations of atrocity in twentieth century China; Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (Columbia University Press, 2005; Rye Field, 2006; Guangxi Normal, 2007), a collection of dialogues with contemporary Chinese filmmakers including Hou Hsiao-hsien, Zhang Yimou, Stanley Kwan, and Jia Zhangke; the monograph, Jia Zhang-ke’s Hometown Trilogy: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures (British Film Institute, February 2009; Guangxi Normal, 2010), which offers extended analysis of the films Xiao Wu, Platform, and Unknown Pleasures; Boiling the Sea: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Memories of Shadows and Light (INK, 2014; Guangxi Normal, 2015), a career-spanning conversation with Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien; Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke (Guangxi Normal, 2021; Duke University Press, 2022), which explores the major work of award-winning filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s body of work; and Enter the Clowns: The Queer Cinema of Cui Zi’en (Showwe, 2022). Berry’s most recent monograph is Translation, Disinformation and Wuhan Diary (Palgrave 2022; Kawada, 2023), which explores the intersection of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, disinformation campaigns, and Fang Fang’s Wuhan Diary. Edited and co-edited books include Modernism Revisited (Rye Field, 20), Divided Lenses: Screen Memories of War in East Asia (Hawaii University Press, 20), and The Musha Incident, a Reader on the Indigenous Uprising in Colonial Taiwan (Rye Field, 2020, Columbia University Press, 2022). He is currently working on a monograph that explores the United States as it has been imagined through Chinese film and popular culture. He is also a contributor to numerous books and periodicals, including The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas (Oxford, 2013), A Companion to Chinese Cinema (Blackwell, 2012), Electric Shadows: A Century of Chinese Cinema. (British Film Institute, 2014), Columbia Companion of Modern Chinese Literature. (Columbia University Press, 2016), Harvard New Literary History of Modern China, (Harvard University Press, 2016), The Chinese Cinema Book (British Film Institute, 2018) and 32 New Takes on Taiwan Cinema (University of Michigan Press, 2022).

He is also the translator of several books, including Exorcism (Amazon Crossing, 2023), Hospital (Amazon Crossing, 2023), Wuhan Diary (HarperVia, 2020), Remains of Life (Columbia, 2017), The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (with Susan Chan Egan) (Columbia, 2008), To Live (Anchor, 2004), Nanjing 1937: A Love Story (Columbia, 2002, Anchor, 2004, Faber & Faber, 2004), and Wild Kids: Two Novels about Growing Up (Columbia, 2000). He is a 2023 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and a two-time Translation Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts (2008, 2021), he received an Honorable Mention for the MLA Louis Roth Translation Prize (2009) and an Honorable Mention for the AAS Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation (2020). He has been on the jury for the Dream of the Red Chamber Prize (2012-2018) and has served as a Jury Member for numerous film festivals, including the Golden Horse Film Festival (2010, 2018) the Hong Kong Fresh Wave (2012, 2022), and the Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival (2017, 2019).

A frequent commentator and consultant, Berry been featured in on stories and articles on various aspects of Chinese film, literature, society and culture for numerous media outlets, including: The New York Times, 60 Minutes, CNN International, Vanity Fair, BBC, CGTN, CCTV, CBS News, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, The New Yorker, China Digital Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, NPR’s The World, China Daily, Global Times, World Journal, The China Press, Taiwan Review, Voice of America, The South China Morning Post, Associated Press, Inverse.com, Nikkei Asian Review, Radio France International, The London Times, The China File, The Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, Wall St TV, etc. He has also served as a film consultant.

Personal Website    Amazon Author Page

Contact: berry@humnet.ucla.edu; Douban; Weibo; WeChat: BerryMichael;
Twitter: @Bairuiwen; ClubHouse: @bairuiwen

Books:

Edited Volumes:

        • Paperback edition, 2017.
        • Simplified Chinese Edition: (Under contract, Xuelin, Shanghai)

Book-length translations:

  • Exorcism by Han Song. Translated with an afterword by Michael Berry. Amazon Crossing, forthcoming, 2023. (paperback, audio book, e-book).
  • Hospital by Han Song. Translated with an afterword by Michael Berry. Amazon Crossing, 2023. (hardcover, paperback, audio book, e-book).
  • Soft Burial by Fang Fang.
      • Rizzoli Libri 2022. (Italian edition, translated from the English).

The Following foreign language editions of Wuhan Diary were translated from the English: