news & reviews

My first novel Chenxi and The Foreigner is to be republished by Text Publishing in March 2008. It has been considerably rewritten for this new edition and the Afterword (below) explains many of the changes. Scroll down further to read a recent review.

AFTERWORD
I was nineteen when I first started collecting ideas for Chenxi and the Foreigner. From 1989 to 1992 I lived in China, studying traditional Chinese painting. During my first year in Shanghai, I wrote down the details of my life in journal entries and short stories, knowing that photographs could never capture the experiences and emotions in the way that words could. But it wasn’t until several years later, when I was living in France, that I began to work all these pieces into a novel.
Many of the experiences I had as an art student in Shanghai, as well as the people I met while I was studying there, inspired this story. I invented its main thread but Chenxi, in particular, is loosely based on a close friend of mine who is still a wonderful painter but now living in Europe.
I finished the manuscript in 1997 and it was eventually published in 2002, but in a different form from the book you have just read. When I recently read that edition, for the first time in years, I could see that, as a young and inexperienced writer I had been afraid of my readership. Not so much of the young adult readers themselves, but of their parents, teachers and librarians, otherwise known as ‘the gatekeepers’ among children’s authors.
I remembered how I had cut out swear words, sex scenes and unfamiliar Chinese politics from the original manuscript for fear of being blocked by those gatekeepers and never reaching my audience. I also worried at the time that, if my novel were too obviously political, I might stir up a discussion I wasn’t confident enough to enter into at that age.
Now, I realise how compromised the first version of Chenxi and the Foreigner became through my own self-censoring, which is ironic given that this is a novel about artistic freedom. I also know, especially now that my oldest son is a teenager, how inquisitive teenage readers worldwide will always seek out for themselves those books which take risks.
It’s not often that an author gets the opportunity to rewrite a book after it has already been published. I began to revise Chenxi with excitement and trepidation. With the encouragement of my publishers, I changed the name of the main characterto allow myself to see her with fresh eyes/detachment and even changed the key decision she has to make at the end of the novel. I decided to include everything: the sex, the swear words and, in particular, the politics.
When I was first writing Chenxi I did not feel confident to include anything about the terrible massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4th, 1989, as it was still close to the event and, in China, still taboo. Even though I was close to many of my fellow students, this was not something they felt comfortable discussing for fear of finding themselves in trouble with the government.
Nearly twenty years later, I have decided to take off my kid gloves and rewrite my novel. I have set it in the period leading up to the Tiananmen Square protests, as I had originally intended. This meant I had to change many details throughout the novel and especially the ending, which now refers to the massacre. Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed, although, because of the government’s tight control over the media, it is unlikely a precise number will ever be known.
In researching this new ending, I was shocked to discover that, unlike the Cultural Revolution, about which information can be freely accessed, the events surrounding June 4th, 1989, have been edited from any media inside Mainland China. This includes books, magazines, newspapers and websites. The Chinese Government has declared June 4th a forbidden topic.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the massacre is forgotten. Each year, on its anniversary, the government places Tiananmen Square under tight security to make sure that there can be no public mourning. Dissidents are placed under house arrest. But, in Hong Kong, thousands gather for a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park to remember those killed and to demand that the families of the victims receive recognition and compensation.
This year, I returned to Shanghai with my family. On the surface, Shanghai is unrecognisable from the city I once lived in. The dusty shops on Huai Hai Lu that once sold old-fashioned polyester slacks and plastic sandals have been transformed into shining department stores with ten-metre-high television screens advertising Dior perfumes and Calvin Klein underwear. All the alleyways I used to ride along have been razed to make way for new businesses that are part of China’s booming economy. Nobody who is anybody rides a bike anymore. How is it then that this country, modern in so many ways, can still be so resistant when it comes to freedom of speech? Sadly, because of the lack of this most basic right, many young adults in China will never know the truth about June 4th, as they were born after 1989.
Chenxi and the Foreigner is a tribute to the Shanghai I once knew. It is also a tribute to artists all over the world who dare to speak freely, no matter what their art form may be and, in particular, to those artists who live in places where speaking freely could cost them their lives.

Sally Rippin,
Chenxi and the Foreigner
Text Publishing (Australia), 2008.

Ages 12+

Set mostly in Shanghai at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Sally Rippin’s bold and sensitive Chenxi and the Foreigner pulls no punches in its account of a repressive Chinese political environment and the terrible consequences for young Chinese artists who resist the repression. As events unfold, readers are given an unblinking look at the price one young Chinese pays for trying to help an ignorant and innocent young Australian girl, Anna, whose naiveté unwittingly puts him and his friends in harm’s way. But Anna is no stereotype; by the end of the book - a deeply felt love story as well as a political exposé and a study of artistic freedom - Anna has learned profound lessons from her grief and ardor. Her time in Shanghai was a rite of passage into the complexities and perplexities of artistic and personal expression.

Chenxi and the Foreigner was written over a period of years, finished in 1997, and originally published in Australia in 2002. For this 2008 edition by another publisher, Rippin had the opportunity to revise the text considerably. As she explains in an Afterword, “…as a young and inexperienced writer, I had been afraid of my readership,” especially parents, teachers and librarians. She compromised the first version through her own self-censoring, “which is ironic given that this is a novel about artistic freedom.” The swear words, sex scenes and Chinese politics that she didn’t feel brave enough to address then are all frankly and appropriately present in the new version.

But her title, which remains unchanged, suggests that Sally Rippin’s courage as an author isn’t altogether new. A lesser writer might have titled the book “Anna and the Chinese Artist,” but Rippin understood from the beginning that the main character in her story is not Anna, through whose eyes the narrative is primarily told, but Chenxi, to whom Anna is “the foreigner.”

In Australia there is much crossover between young adult and adult fiction, and this novel is a good example of why that’s the case. While the second edition is again targeted at Rippin’s loyal teen readership, it condescends not an iota to their youth. The Shanghai she knew when she lived and studied art there (still a teenager herself when she arrived) no longer exists. However, through her visual intelligence and strong writing, Sally Rippin brings the city alive again, and with it an era and concerns we all need to remember and understand.
Charlotte Richardson
January 2008

News on The Rainbirds (Lothian Books 0-7344-0886-2 $27.95 Hb)

The most recent book I have illustrated is called "The Rainbirds", written by David Metzenthen. As with all manuscripts I am given to illustrate, I held onto it for a while until I could find my way in. The first stage was to ask David what the story meant to him. He explained that the story was essentially about being in the city and watching the currawong birds fly in from the mountains, bringing the idea of a not too distant wilderness with them. I loved this idea and set about bringing it out in my illustrations.

I wanted to depict the city as noisy, grey and polluted to contrast with the lush green of the mountains. I did this by gluing scrunched newspaper down and roughly painting white gouache over it to form the city background. For me the black and white newsprint represents the noise, busyness and pollution of the inner city environment where Gleeson lives. The places where the mountains appear, whether literally or in Gleeson's imagination, I have ripped back this newsprint to the original watercolour paper and represented the foliage in a very soft, painterly way to contrast with the stark cut-outs of the city.

Everything in Gleeson's world I have depicted as black, white and red to represent a monochromatic cityscape. When the birds fly into the city they not only bring the springtime with them, but also the colour. I liked the idea of the black and white birds being responsible for the flourishing of colour in Gleeson's world. On the very last page, where we see the sole currawong singing, if you look closely you will see that instead of the painted newsprint background I have used sheets of music. When I was child I loved to discover this kind of secret detail in illustrations. I still do!

Here is an interesting question I received from a teacher in an email and my answer below:

I wish to know the significance and meaning of the endpapers in The Rainbirds. I fail to see any connection to the story or its theme. Had there been words about the forest or the country I could understand. Could you please enlighten me on the meaning?

The newspaper represents not only the greyness and pollution of the city, but also the noise and busyness. So, the words I chose to reveal in the endpapers are city, 'newspapery' words, about money, business, politics and the kind of words that the newspaper has come to represent for me - rarely good news about the gentle quiet loving acts that are performed everyday around the world but are not often deemed worthy of reporting.

Review in Magpies (Number Five - Nov 2006):

"This picture book is a collaboration between two great imaginative talents in Australian children's literature. Lyrically written, it is a story of Gleeson who lives in the city, but who, with the help of his father, is able to imagine life in the wilds beyond the distant mountains on the horizon. It is there that the rainbirds live and who, each autumn, gather in large loose flocks flying to winter in the city.

Gleeson rejoices in their wildness and revels in their company over winter. Come the spring though, the rainbirds return to the creeks and gullies of the mountains which Gleeson imagines from the top of his tree in the park. In a wonderful evocation of the duality of wild and tamed nature the wild birds are seen exchanging their wildness for the suburban cultivated nature of the city park.

The written text integrates with the illustrations on each page, changing font and following the curve of the images that are a mixture of collage, charcoal, gouache and coloured pencil. The background design of the cover, pages and endpapers is whited out newsprint. This alters on the last page as a rainbird sings its song curra-wong! curra-wong! sitting on the ironworked gardens on the park gate; here the background changes into bars of music. On the endpapers individual words have been highlighted against the newsprint. Most of these words are cultural markers of 21st century life from governmental and technological fields: software, terrorism, financial, profit and consumption. This is open to interpretation but as there are also a few less threatening words such as: family and vision (but only a few), I interpreted it as a warning of how the modern world can drown out what should be the fundamental basics of society.

This is a beautifully written, illustrated and designed narrative - a fable for the future."

Jo Coward.

News on books in progress:

This year I was asked to illustrate a book for Korean publisher, Yeowan Media. It's great to be part of a cross-cultural exchange like this and I hope there will be many more to come. The book is titled Water Buffalo Boy and is set in Vietnam. While the first edition will naturally be in Korean, I hope it might get taken up by an English language publisher in the future. To have a look at some of the illustrations from Water Buffalo Boy, click here to go to my Gallery page.

Currently I am illustrating a book for Kate Ryan called The Search of Fred Beany and my book The Magic Mirror, published by Lothian, will be released early 2007.

Good news!

My first two picture books Speak Chinese, Fang Fang! and Fang Fang's Chinese New Year have finally been reprinted after ten years! Fang Fang's Chinese New Year won the Crichton Award for Illustration in 1997. It's great to have them back on the shelves!

More good news!

The Rainbirds won Honour Book in the Children's Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year Awards.