Michael Berry's areas of research include modern and contemporary Chinese literature, Chinese cinema, popular culture in modern China, and translation studies. Berry's approach is transnational and his work addresses the richness and diversity of Chinese art and culture as it has manifested itself in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas Chinese communities. He also holds affiliate appointments with Comparative Literature, Film and Media Studies, and Asian American Studies. 

Michael Berry is the author of A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film, which explores literary and cinematic representations of atrocity in twentieth century China, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers a collection of dialogues with contemporary Chinese filmmakers including Hou Hsiao-hsien, Zhang Yimou, Stanley Kwan, and Jia Zhangke, and the forthcoming monograph, Jia Zhang-ke’s Hometown Trilogy, which offers extended analysis of the films Xiao Wu, Platform, and Unknown Pleasures. Also an active literary translator, Berry has translated several important contemporary Chinese novels by Yu Hua, Ye Zhaoyan, Chang Ta-chun, and Wang Anyi. Current literary translation projects include the modern martial arts novel The Last Swallow of Autumn (Xia yin) and Wu He’s (Dancing Crane) award winning novel Remains of Life (Yu sheng), a fascinating literary exploration of the 1930 Musha Incident, which was honored with a 2008 NEA Translation Grant.

His work has received generous support from a variety of organizations, including the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, The Weatherhead Foundation, the China Times Cultural Foundation, and the National Endowment of the Arts.

Selected Publications

		Jia Zhang-ke's Hometown Trilogy (British Film Institute & Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2009).
		A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (Columbia University Press, 2008).
				Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (Columbia University Press, 2005; Traditional Chinese edition, Rye Field 2007; Simplified Chinese Edition, Guangxi Normal University Press 2008).

Book Length Translations

		The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan, with an Afterword by Michael Berry (Columbia University Press 2008).
		To Live by Yu Hua, Translated and with an afterword by Michael Berry (Anchor Books, 2003).
				Nanjing 1937: A Love Story by Ye Zhaoyan, Translated with an introduction by Michael Berry (Columbia University Press, 2002, Faber & Faber, 2003, Anchor Books, 2004)
		Wild Kids: Two Novels about Growing Up by Chang Ta-chun, Translated with an introduction by Michael Berry (Columbia University Press, 2000).

Teaching

• Popular Culture in Modern Chinese Societies
• Workshop in Chinese translation
• Imagining Atrocity in Modern Chinese Literature and Film
• New Taiwan Cinema
• Literature and Film in Contemporary China
• Introduction to the Cultures of East Asia: Modern
• Asian Literatures: Modern Chinese Fiction
• Fourth Year Chinese: China Through Cinema