"Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connection in a Divided World" authored by Dr. Will Buckingham, a Faculty of General Education at Parami University, has just been translated into Chinese by Lanfang Wen and published by the Zhejiang People's Publishing House. The title in Chinese 你好，陌生人：一位人类学家的心灵重建之旅, translates to "Hello, Stranger: An Anthropologist's Journey of Spiritual Reconstruction."
Dr. Will Buckingham is a writer from the UK with a background in philosophy and anthropology. But he has pretty omnivorous intellectual interests, so he often finds himself writing about other things, too. "Hello, Stranger: Hello, Stranger: Stories of Connection in a Divided World" is his thirteenth book, and it is probably the most eclectic one yet.
“The book is about how we make sense of the fact that most of the eight billion people with whom we share the planet are strangers. It also asks how we can develop cultures and practices that are more hospitable to people we don't know.”—Dr. Will Buckingham
The book moves from Chinese poetry and Homer's Odyssey to the anthropology of Mongolia and East Indonesia in an attempt to get to the root of human practices of hospitality. It is also a book with a really deep connection with Parami.
“When I first taught at Parami in 2017, I ran a course for Parami's first-ever cohort of students, exploring the global cultures of hospitality. We talked about a lot of things, from hungry ghosts to how to make friends with baboons. And I don't think the book would have taken shape the way it did without the insights of my students,” he explained.
When the book came out, it was serialized on BBC Radio 4 in the UK, and it has already been translated into German and Korean.
“It seems particularly popular in Korea. I'm heading there a second time later this summer to do a book event. But a Chinese translation feels particularly special. I'm a Chinese speaker, and in both China and Taiwan, I have found myself welcomed many times as a stranger into other people's homes and lives. So, I hope that the book resonates with Chinese-speaking audiences. I also have a lot of gratitude for Lanfang Wen's wonderful translation. Translating, too, is a kind of hospitality: it is the art of welcoming something strange and alien and making it at home in your own language.”—Dr. Will Buckingham
Dr. Buckingham is a full-time professor of the Faculty of General Education at Parami University. In the fall semester of 2024, Dr. Buckingham will teach two courses: Writing the Self and World and Dealing with Difference. "Hello Stranger: Stories Connection in a Divided World", is published by Granta and available on various platforms: Amazon, Waterstones and more.
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