A critically acclaimed literary magazine, Tiannan (Chutzpah being its English name), has stopped publication after nearly four years. Tiannan’s Chief Editor, Ou Ning, announced the news on Feb 19 on his weibo account (link in Chinese). Over its print run of 16 issues, Tiannan has earned rave reviews by lovers of literature for its presentation and edgy selection of literary content—subjects ranged from dialect literature to minority literature, poetry, diaspora, and the last on the “Diamond Generation” of post-89 youth. Each issue also included an abridged English-language supplement consisting mainly of translations from the Chinese.

Tiannan, a literary magazine under the Modern Media Group, closed for mainly financial reasons, Ou Ning revealed (to Dongfang Daily 东方早报; link in Chinese); he also disclosed that each issue cost 500 000 RMB and that, in fact, the publication had already shifted from a bi-monthly to a quarterly periodical. The sparse advertising in each issue (usually three) along with the general difficulties of running a literary magazine along commercial lines certainly could not have helped. Additionally, according to Dongfang Daily, the closure of Tiannan is not unrelated to the profit warnings issued recently by Modern Media Group, a media conglomerate with prominent titles such as Modern Weekly Lifestyle (周末画报), the Chinese version of Bloomsberg Businessweek, Vision (新视线), as well as the bilingual art magazine, LEAP (艺术界).

Photo of the last issue (about to be published)
即将出版的最后一期杂志封面