Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

🛶Happy Duanwu Festival 端午节 (Dragon Boat Festival)! Celebrated by people of many ethnic groups in China and around the world, the festival is marked by eating zongzi (粽子) and racing dragon boats (龍舟).

The festival is believed to have originated in ancient China. While several theories exist about its origins, the best-known tradition commemorates Qu Yuan, a poet and statesman of the Chu Kingdom during the Warring States period, who died in 278 BCE.

📖 The Hyŏndae munhak (現代文學) Full Online Archive is available to the U of T community through U of T Libraries.

One of Korea's leading literary journals, Hyŏndae munhak, provides access to more than 40,000 works of contemporary Korean literature and literary criticism, including poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews spanning decades of literary activity.

The East Asian Library also continues to collect the journal in print, with current issues available in the library.

#現代文學 #현대문학

🎨 Did you know that the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library offers a virtual exhibition featuring the artwork of illustrator Zhang Ming-ming (Ming-ming Cheung)?

Images of China: Illustrations by Zhang Ming-ming showcases original drawings created for Speaking Out: Issues and Controversies, An Advanced Chinese Reader. The virtual exhibit expands on the physical exhibition hosted at the Library in 2023 by including all of the original illustrations, as well as a broader selection of student essays and opinion pieces exploring the themes behind the artwork.

🖼️ View the virtual exhibit:
https://exhibits.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/images-of-china-zhang/home

✨Thank you to everyone who joined us for LiterASIAN Toronto 2026: Re-Generation!

We’re grateful to our featured authors Farzana Doctor, Jack Wang, and June Hur; moderator Professor Larissa Lai; and special guest performers Amely Zhou and Hong-Da Chin for an inspiring evening celebrating Asian Canadian literature.

💛A heartfelt thank you to all who attended and helped make this event so meaningful.

Event highlights in photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.968511965813498&type=3

✨Reminder: This Friday is LiterASIAN Toronto 2026!

📚Join us as we explore this year’s theme, “Re-Generation,” and celebrate 50 years of Asian Canadian literary history.

🎶Enjoy an evening of inspiring conversations, live performances, and community gathering featuring acclaimed authors and special musical guests.

🥂 Refreshments will be served. We can’t wait to see you there!

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
🕑 Doors Open: 2:15 PM | Program & Reception: 2:45 – 5:15 PM
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Robarts Library (8th Floor), 130 St. George St., Toronto
📩For inquiries please email [email protected]

LiterASIAN Toronto 2026 is next week — mark your calendar for May 22!

📚Featuring acclaimed authors Farzana Doctor, Jack Wang, and June Hur, in conversation with moderator Professor Larissa Lai.

🎶Experience a special live erhu performance by Amely Zhou and dizi performance by Hong-Da Chin.

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
🕑 Doors Open: 2:15 PM | Program & Reception: 2:45 – 5:15 PM
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Robarts Library (8th Floor), 130 St. George St., Toronto
📩For inquiries please email [email protected]

🔖Only a few spots left. Don’t miss out!

Join us to explore the richness of Asian Canadian literature 📚✨
🎟️ Free and open to all
🥤 Refreshments included

Secure your spot before tickets run out. Learn more and sign up today!
📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537

🌟Upcoming lecture at the Faculty of Music by Daniel K.L. Chua: Interrogating Global Musical Modernities and Local Agency: Is there are Chinese Way?

📅 May 8, 2026
⏰ 4:30–6:00 pm
📌Walter Hall (Edward Johnson Building). Free admission—all welcome!

ℹ️https://globalwam.webflow.io/interrogating-global-musical-modernities-and-local-agency-is-there-are-chinese-way

✨ Featured Book Spotlight: The Lost Century by Larissa Lai ✨

On the eve of the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to China in 1997, young Ophelia asks her peculiar great-aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II, the disappearance of her uncle Raymond, and whether her grandmother, Emily, was a murderer.

Emily's marriage - three times - to her father's mortal enemy causes a stir among three very different Hong Kong Chinese families, as well as among the young cricketers at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, who've just witnessed King Edward VIII's abdication to marry Wallis Simpson. But the bickering around the scandal of Emily's marriage is violently disrupted by the Japanese Imperial Army's invasion of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941, which plunges the colony into a landscape of violence none of its inhabitants escape from unscathed, least of all Emily. When her sister's situation becomes dire, Violet, along with a crew of unlikely cosmopolitans, hatches a plan to rescue Emily from the wrath of the person she thought loved her the most - her husband, Tak-Wing. In the middle of it all, a strange match of timeless Test cricket unfolds in which the ball has an agency all its own.

With great heart, The Lost Century explores the intersections of Asian relations, q***r Asian history, underground resistance, the violence of war, and the rise of modern China - a sprawling novel of betrayal, epic violence, and intimate passions.

🌸Learn more about this book and Asian Canadian literature at LiterASIAN Toronto 2026: Re-Generation.

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537