Shanghai Literary Week explores evolving classics

The main forum of Shanghai International Literary Week, a major event of the 2025 Shanghai Book Fair, opened on Wednesday, bringing together writers, translators and professors from home and abroad to discuss the theme Classics in Flux and Transformation.

Held on Tuesday night at the Henry Lester Institute of Technical Education in Hongkou district, the main forum will run from Aug 12 to 18.

Martin Puchner, Byron and Anita Wien Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Harvard University in the United States, delivered a keynote address on the importance of cultural exchange and adaptation in the context of widespread cultural appropriation.

Puchner stated that culture is a dynamic process shaped by interactions, borrowings and adaptations across different societies and eras. Drawing on the example of Xuanzang (602-664), the famous Chinese traveler who brought Buddhist manuscripts from India, Puchner highlighted how culture evolves through circulation, rediscovery and reinterpretation.