Through his two protagonists, Bai Hua addresses themes of the repression and freedom of sexuality, the brutality of modernity, and the fluidity of gender roles as the novel moves hypnotically and inevitably toward a collision between two worlds.
Through his two protagonists, Bai Hua addresses themes of the repression and freedom of sexuality, the brutality of modernity, and the fluidity of gen...
This brilliant little novel, set against the backdrop of post-Mao China, juxtaposes recollections of childhood, pet ownership, and marriage with discussions of art, sex, and murder, weaving together an absurdist tapestry that is the inner life of the novel's felicitously named protagonist, Huang Haha. Subversive, iconoclastic, and wholly irreverent.
This brilliant little novel, set against the backdrop of post-Mao China, juxtaposes recollections of childhood, pet ownership, and marriage with discu...
The most comprehensive and authoritative representation in English of the remarkable Shen Congwen canon, ranging from the polished stories that made him a serious contender for the Nobel literary prize in the 1980s to lesser known, extravagant experimental pieces.
The most comprehensive and authoritative representation in English of the remarkable Shen Congwen canon, ranging from the polished stories that made h...
To travel through these stories is to cross a landscape of stunning beauty and terrific cruelty, where expectations are subverted, where moral certainties are shattered, where gorgeously wrought surfaces beguile at the same time that acts of incredible brutality horrify.
It is no wonder that Yu Hua's stories caused a sensation when they first appeared in the 1980s. His work represents a sophisticated and often disturbing revolution in the Chinese literary tradition, reminiscent of the fiction of modernists like Kafka, Kawabata, Borges, and Robbe-Grillet, but drawing inspiration...
To travel through these stories is to cross a landscape of stunning beauty and terrific cruelty, where expectations are subverted, where moral cert...
Virgin Widows is a poignant and disquieting novel that unfolds the stories of two women whose lives, despite being separated by nearly a century, reveal a disturbing similarity. First published in China in 1985, it appears now in English for the first time.
Virgin Widows is a poignant and disquieting novel that unfolds the stories of two women whose lives, despite being separated by nearly a century, reve...
In this suspenseful tale of seduction and deception, a wealthy banker is smitten by an alluring young woman while traveling aboard the express train from Beijing to Shanghai. A consummate storyteller and one of the most popular novelists of his day, Zhang Henshui sweeps us on board with them and takes us through train stations and back and forth between first, second, and third class cars, evoking the smells of this microcosm of the urban world. We see what various travelers wear; we hear their conversations; we feel the chill or the warmth of each car; we detect a trace of perfume in one,...
In this suspenseful tale of seduction and deception, a wealthy banker is smitten by an alluring young woman while traveling aboard the express trai...
Its such a pity I, too used to think of money and love as entirely separate things.
So begins this popular autobiographical novel, written by litterateur, inventor, and business tycoon Chen Diexian (1879–1940), a remarkable intellectual whose life spanned the old China and the new. Chens novel is the story of his youth, and in it he chooses to focus on his amorous and erotic development—a rare subject in Chinese literature—revealing his passage from innocent boy, surrounded by females, to young man, armed with a new attitude...
Its such a pity I, too used to think of money and love as entirely separate things.