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Aoife Cantrill

@acantrill.bsky.social
496 followers 415 following 38 posts

Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese History, University of Oxford www.ames.ox.ac.uk/people/aoife-cant…

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Reposted by Aoife Cantrill
Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 8h
"Russia has been targeting presses and publishing houses across Ukraine for the past month, in a campaign that’s increasingly concerned with decimating Ukrainian culture." buff.ly/0lb6C1o
buff.ly
Russia has destroyed “one third of all the books printed in Ukraine this year.”
On September 25, The New York Times reported that Russian drones hit a plant on the edge of Kyiv. That plant was home to a printing press, and millions of children’s books. This attack is but…
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Latest arrival in manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/series/studi...
Andrew Hillier, Living in the Shadow of Empire: women and the China consular world, 1843-1900
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Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Happy #InternationalTranslationDay! To celebrate, we're sharing an image of Brian Walton's Polyglot Bible. The impressive six volume work presents the Old Testament in nine languages: Hebrew, Aramaic (Targum), Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, Greek, and Latin.
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NCC (北米日本研究資料調整協議会) @nccjapaninfo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
How do cartoons & sketches inform us about the history of Sugamo Prison & POW experiences? To find out revisit this fascinating #NCCSpotlight on the Fumio Fujiki & Tokio Tobita collection by Dr. Ann Marie Davis (Japan Librarian & Associate Prof, Ohio State)! guides.nccjapan.org/homepage/new...
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Ali Messer @freereed59.net · 22/09/2026
'the archive creates possibilities extending beyond Britain and the Caribbean.Migration and the forced movement of people under enslavement mean descendants can be found across the African diaspora, including in the US and Latin America.' Ancestry account required www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...
theguardian.com
Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online
Exclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad
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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I’m running an experimental reading/lecture series at lunchtime on Thursdays, this fall at UBC — bring a project, and listen to me talk about technology and textiles while you work! It’s free, open to everyone, and drop-in (each session stands alone). Vancouver friends, come by!

Ears + Hands Fibres and Textiles Workroom Series with Deb Chachra
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Thursdays from Sep 17th - Nov 27th
12:00 - 1:30 PM @ FLEET Mobile Studio (very limited seating)
—
Handwork time with informal talks

Sept 17: Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula Franklin, and Virginia Postrel on fibres, textiles, and technology

FREE and all welcome. Bring a project to work on!

Text is superimposed over a black and white etching of 19C women working at a loom.
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 18/09/2026
“Scholars have groped for what even to call this dire diminishment of intellectual capacity. “Human enfeeblement” has been proposed, and alike “cognitive surrender” and even “cognitive extinction.” (You could also call it, “losing your mind.”)” - Jill Lepore www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Artificial Education | The Harvard Crimson
Machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends.
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Aoife Cantrill @acantrill.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
'[...] the rural literacy campaign included widely circulated images of nomadic women learning to read and write, including one photograph of a mother studying the alphabet as she carried her baby on her back, a visual emblem of the Somali present and future' academic.oup.com/ahr/article/...
academic.oup.com
A Revolution of Letters: Text, Sight and Spectacle in Socialist Somalia
Abstract. Colonialism in Africa was a textual encounter, with writing operating as an essential tool for colonial governance as well as a visual embodiment
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 11/09/2026
Applications now invited for the Society's next round of research funding: for Postgraduates, studying for a PhD, and Early Career Historians, within 5 years of completing a doctorate: bit.ly/4ywZi0S Grants of £500-£1000 to pursue research. Closing date 4 December 2026 #Skystorians 1/2
bit.ly
Calls for research funding from the Royal Historical Society: December 2026 deadlines - RHS
The Society invites applications for the following three schemes — open to historians at a range of career stages — with closing dates from 4 December 2026. Postgraduate Research Support Grants, 2026-...
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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
How to do with books, especially bibles, when you live in a material world? Well, William Hogarth of 18th century fame reminds us of the typical re-using (of bindings). In this case, the leather binding is re-used for a shoe sole. #bookhistory #booksky
A detail from William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress, Plate 1, from around 1735, showing a bound bible and the leather cover with a hole that looks like a shoe. William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress, Plate 1.
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HAM: Calligraphy (Bot) @hamcalligraphy.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"Because of the void everything is possible. Without the void nothing is possible.", Written in Bold Black Script www.harvardartmuseums.org/collectio…
This large, horizontally oriented, rectangular album leaf is inscribed with seven columns of text, the columns with varying numbers of characters. The calligraphy on this album leaf was inscribed by Fung Ming Chip (b. 1951; standard Mandarin transcript...
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K. Alexander 亞天恩 @thianun.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
We also started looking at a newly acquired collection of 20th century 木魚書, which are so fragile they’ll stay in Rare Books as they’re processed and added to the library catalog. Love these modern covers!
Cover of one thin volume with an illustration of a Chinese woman holding up the name of the publisher 五桂堂 in bubbles, with light rays shining up from the one foot she’s balancing on like a dancer. Covers of two more little volumes that are illustrated with an embracing western couple and also include advertisements for medicines
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Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 30/08/2026
I found this video series very informative! youtu.be/QbHSiyN1upc?...
youtu.be
Women and Clothing in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) | Episode 3 | Chinese Clothing Through the Ages
YouTube video by FJU Chinese Textiles and Clothing Culture Center
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Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 30/08/2026
if you think the "1644 historical view" (that Qing isn't part of Chinese history) stuff is weird, don't forget the Hanfu movement (which started in the early 2000s) emerged from the same premise. that the garments worn by Han Chinese women continuously in late Qing & Republic era were
photo of female garments from early-mid 20th century China
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Tadashi Ishikawa 石川匡 @tadashiishikawa.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Thank you to Evan Dawley for bringing Fang Yu Hu’s Good Wife, Wise Mother and Geographies of Gender together in his review for The Journal of Japanese Studies @jjs-jrnl.bsky.social. muse.jhu.edu/pub/263/arti...
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The Folklore Society @folkloresociety.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The Folklore Society Presidential Address 2026, 'The Passion of the Flax, Continued', is on Tuesday 15th September at 17:30 BST. Online via Zoom, with limited in-person places for FLS members also attending our AGM. This is a free event but donations are welcomed www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-passio...
eventbrite.co.uk
The Passion of the Flax, Continued
Prof. David Hopkin's Folklore Society Presidential Address 2026 revisits Robert Eisler's 'The Passion of the Flax'
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Association for Asian Studies @asianstudies.org · 06/08/2026
Established in Honor of Mark McLelland, the NEAC Short-Term Research Grant in the History of Japanese Sexualities and Genders facilitates short-term research travel to Japan. Apply by October 1 at 5pm ET for this opportunity! bit.ly/AASgrants
Call for applications for a short-term research grant on the history of Japanese sexualities, honoring Mark McLelland, deadline October 1, 2026.
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Simon Jones @simonjones.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Protective visor to prevent eye injuries submitted by Drs. Landret & Polack, evaluated February 1917. Recommend for field trials & adopted. I believe that this is Aron Polack modelling it. Source: www.siv.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/siv/media/FR...
Black & white photo bearded man in uniform wearing slatted metal eye shield.
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Moss on Stone @mossonstone.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
4/6 The war in China permeates periodicals from the time. Domestic life is the front line of preserving national resources, while women outside the home contribute to wartime production. This issue focused on marriage offers advice on remarriage for war widows.
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Moss on Stone @mossonstone.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
The March, 1940 issue of 主婦之友 (The Housewife's Friend) is on Internet Archive to read or download. Explore this key household magazine during Japan's full-scale invasion of China, but still before Japan's southern advance in 1941. 1/6 archive.org/details/shuf...
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Devin Fitzgerald, bibliothot @devinfitz.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
If you are curious about different paper wrappers as bindings, this catalogue has it all. Paste papers, Dutch gilt, marbled papers, a feast for the eyes. Truly an impressive collection. ilab.org/assets/catal...
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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Now that many people are buying my 2017 metrical verse translation of the Odyssey in great numbers (thank you, Mr Nolan!), or at least, gazing at it and wondering whether to buy it, I thought I should share some thoughts on the cover design.
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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
companies are sourcing millions of printed books for AI labs that scan them for training data, then destroy them. printed books are more valuable because they're free of AI slop, and AI labs know destroying them is an "optics problem." www.404media.co/ai-companies...
404media.co
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”
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Revue Artefact @revueartefact.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Call for papers for a special issue of the journal, "Making Fictional Interiors: Techniques, Publics and Modular Materialities (17th-21st Centuries)", co-edited by Barbara Bessac and Elisa Chazal @elisa-chazal.bsky.social. More information: journals.openedition.org/artefact/20998
journals.openedition.org
Fabriquer les intérieurs fictifs : techniques, publics et matériali...
Qu’il s’agisse d’un showroom, d’une period room ou d’une scène théâtrale, l’intérieur fictif est un espace éphémère grandeur nature construit pour reproduire un intérieur existant, disparu ou imagi...
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 15/07/2026
In addition to today's data on staffing in UK HE, @britishacademy.bsky.social has produced several briefings, including one on the very significant decline in early career academics, 2012-24: bit.ly/4wGBTcl History has seen a 32% decline in early career staff numbers since 2012/13 #Skystorians 1/2
he British Academy
Mapping SHAPE academic staff briefing:
Pathways for early career
SHAPE
academics are in decline
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Modern Japan History Association @modernjapanhist.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
July 21! 鶴園裕基 (Tsuruzono Yūki, Kagawa U) on his new book 『「人の移動」の国際政治―東アジア冷戦体制の形成と日本華僑』(Internat'l Politics of Migration: Overseas "Chinese" in Japan and the Cold War Regime in E. Asia), with Evan Dawley (Goucher) and Tadashi Ishikawa (U of Ctrl Florida). Register for Zoom: mjha.org/event-6611093
A screenshot of the event webpage featuring descriptions of the event in English and Japanese, and featuring a book cover with a stylized depiction of dark blue-green ocean waves.
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Julia C. Bullock @juliacbullock.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Attention Japan scholars: Nagoya University's Gender Research Library just posted the CFA for its 2027 Visiting Researcher program. I'm the current scholar in residence (for a wee bit longer) so feel free to DM me with questions. www.grl.kyodo-sankaku.provost.nagoya-u.ac.jp/news/3777.html
grl.kyodo-sankaku.provost.nagoya-u.ac.jp
GRL Visiting Program 2027: Call for Applications - 名古屋大学ジェンダーリサーチライブラリ
The Gender Research Library (GRL) at Nagoya University is inviting
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sakura christmas @prof-christmas.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Saddened to hear of the passing of the Sinologist Victor Mair, a linguistic genius the likes our field will not see again for a long time. I first got to know him via his incredible blog, Language Log, fresh out of college and was beyond-the-moon happy when he reposted my writing there, but
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu
Language Log » Gibberish Uyghur
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Dr Beckie Rutherford (she/her) @beckierutherford.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
I've spent almost 3 years with this wonderful team and am happy to answer any questions about how it all works - if you're thinking of applying for this role please feel free to email or message me!
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Stuart Elden @stuartelden.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
@versobooks.bsky.social From the Archive: Carlo Ginzburg www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/c...
versobooks.com
From the Archive: Carlo Ginzburg
Born into a radical family in Turin at the beginning of the Second World War, Carlo Ginzburg (1939-2026) was a luminary historian and founder of the field of microhistory. Below is Peter Burke’s intro...
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Aoife Cantrill @acantrill.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Great article by Yuhao Chen about Wang-Peill script from a history of the body/history of medicine perspective inscriptionjournal.com/2026/06/07/y...
inscriptionjournal.com
Yuhao Chen – Table of Phonetic Wounds
6_Chen_PhoneticDownload
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Gregory Adam Scott 史瑞骼💀 @sudasana.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Cover of Miaoyin ji 妙音集 (Wondrous Voice Collection) from April 1943, a periodical dedicated to transcripts and information relating to Buddhist audio records and radio broadcasts. crta.info/wiki/%E5%A6%...
Cover of the periodical, showing the title and a group of urban people facing a large Buddha and instruments behind a large radio broadcast tower
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 14/06/2026
🧶 Today is World Wide Knit in Public Day 🌍 a reminder that preservation is not passive, it's made a stitch at a time. Check out Mlle. Riego de la Branchardière’s THE KNITTING BOOK (1848), part of our Victorian Knitting Manuals collection 👉 archive.org/details/krl0... #WWKIPDay #Knitting
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Gina Anne Tam @dgtam86.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
This book (written by a scholar with language competency in Japanese using LLMs to translate secondary scholarship Korean, which he cant read) raises important questions we as a field have to face about expertise and translation, as well as what the role of language-learning is in history (🧵)
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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Weird question for China scholars: is there anything out there good for me to read on the history of the CCP’s “translation room?” I’m interested in learning more about who translated Mao’s “Selected Works” into English
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Moss on Stone @mossonstone.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Two of the most useful sources for Taiwanese colonial history are the Japanese periodicals 台湾時報 & 台湾日日新報. Many issues of both can be read/downloaded from Internet Archive. 台湾時報 1919-1928, 1935-1939 (138 issues) archive.org/search?query... 台湾日日新報 1932-1944 (3,772 issues) archive.org/details/twnn...
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Moss on Stone @mossonstone.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
There are 128 issues of the Japanese women's magazine 婦人と新社會 run by the social activist 山田わか (1879–1957) on the Internet Archive to read and download, covering women's rights and education, political thought, pacifism, and international news one the women's movement. archive.org/search?query...
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Mekong Review @mekongreview.com · 27/05/2026
The publication of The Albatross File: Inside Separation is very welcome for those with an interest in the Singapore story—though less for the hitherto secret documents it reproduces and more for the hitherto secret oral histories. Read now: mekongreview.com/kee...
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
"We must avoid the 'Babel syndrome,' the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance."
vatican.va
Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026)
ENCYCLICAL LETTER MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [ Multimedia ] ___________________________
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Chris Newfield @cnewf.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
the FT has two pieces on the slow-motion collapse of UK higher ed. 4/5ths of unis are doing voluntary layoffs; 38% are doing compulsory. Meanwhile Britain and its flatlined productivity growth sleepwalks through its unprecedented loss of advanced capabilities www.ft.com/content/8097...
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Aoife Cantrill @acantrill.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Packaging of The Gleaners magazine in 1952, ran out of CPC Taiwan, designed to look like sheaves of wheat in reference to Jean-François Millet’s 1857 painting
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Moss on Stone @mossonstone.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
There are over 120 issues of the Japanese journal dedicated to the campaign against licensed prostitution 廓清 1911-1922 on Internet Archive for reading and download. archive.org/search?query...
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sakura christmas @prof-christmas.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
New collection of primary sources on environmental history of China from @columbiaup.bsky.social out in December 2026! Selections translated from 8 (!!!) different languages for #envhist, #energyhist, and #histstm classes on China, East Asia, and the global. #aghist #animalstudies #plantstudies
cup.columbia.edu
China's Environmental History | Columbia University Press
China has a vast written history that records the countless ways people have observed, transformed, and preserved their environments over the centuries. This... | CUP
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Martin Jordan @martinjordan.com · 22/05/2026
Cannot wait to explore some of these concrete buildings when back in Hong Kong: www.wallpaper.com/architecture...
wallpaper.com
Hong Kong brutalism explored: tour the island with this new architectural map
Hong Kong brutalism is brought into sharp focus through the launch of Brutalist Hong Kong Map, the latest of its kind in publisher Blue Crow Media’s 20th-century architecture series
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Sarah Arens @saraharens.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Funding for provenance research in colonial contexts in public museums+collections, including libraries+archives, in Germany. Applications for long-term projects can be submitted on 1 Oct and 1 Apr; rolling deadline for extensions and short-term projects. kulturgutverluste.de/en/contexts/...
kulturgutverluste.de
Project Funding for Cultural Goods and Collections from Colonial Contexts
On this page, publicly funded institutions and private institutions recognised as non-profit organisations which are interested in applying for project funding in the area of “Cultural goods and colle...
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Chenchen Zhang 🤦🏻‍♀️ @chenchenzhang.net · 20/05/2026
♥️ powerful speech by Lin King, translator of Taiwan Travelogue @linkinglionking.bsky.social
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Min Chao @wordsfromtaiwan.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Huan-er herself wrote in a neat mix of traditional and simplified Mandarin characters, w/ the nonconventional sentence structure likely derived from her colonial Japanese education. Her prison diary used hiragana to phonetically spell out the English lyrics to the song "Till I Waltz Again With You."
A page from her prison diary that contains English lyrics written in Japanese phonetics. © "Liumagou №15"
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Min Chao @wordsfromtaiwan.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
My gut somersaulted to my chest. The corners of my mouth couldn't help but curl with glee.  Ah— so this was Taiwan, Land of the South! ~•~ Read an excerpt from #TaiwanTravelogue, the #InternationalBooker2026 winner, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...
https://bsky.app/profile/andotherstories.bsky.social/post/3mmahzi7eyk2r
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Aoife Cantrill @acantrill.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
& even more exciting … they won !! first novel in Mandarin Chinese to win the International Booker Prize youtu.be/GV5pq2b3_7c?...
youtu.be
第一人! 「臺灣漫遊錄」奪布克獎 創台文學首例|TVBS新聞 @TVBSNEWS01
YouTube video by TVBS NEWS
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