Description:
This collection is especially valuable since there are no more works from Liu because shortly after producing this he was murdered purportedly for political reasons.
Brief description: Liu Na'ou (1905-1940) was an editor, writer, film critic, scenarist, and director who introduced Japanese Shinkankakuha (New Sensationism) to China and made it an important school of modern Chinese urban fiction. His writings-Urban Scenes, his slim volume of modernist fiction, in particular-have had an outsized influence on Shanghai's image as a phantasmagoric metropolis in the 1920s and 1930s, and his name has become part of the city's twentieth-century history. Liu's life was cut short when he was murdered by unknown assailants, purportedly for political reasons.
Review Quotes:
"In this fascinating collection of short fiction, Liu Na'ou experiments with language and narrative to explore new modes of expression to capture China's dizzying shift from tradition to modernity in the 1920s. Whereas other Chinese writers of the day embraced social realism, Liu sought a different literary path that favored depictions of the layered complexity of human thought and desire. Set (mostly) against the backdrop of Shanghai's culture of modernity-its nightclubs, cinemas, foreigners, racetracks, streetcars, art studios, cafes, and trains-the stories center on new kinds of male-female relationships. Although mostly narrated from a male perspective, the many strong female characters, who boldly assert their independence and sexuality, reflect changing conceptions of womanhood in a deeply patriarchal society. Sexual desire pervades the stories, particularly desire outside of the confines of marriage, a theme that goes hand in hand with their attention to the exotica of modern urban life. The stories are poised, somewhat precariously, between fascination with and critique of the trappings of modernity." -Kirk A. Denton, The Ohio State University
"This timely translation of a signature work of Chinese modernist fiction provides English-language readers with a fresh new window into the lives, loves, and liberties of city people in China's most modern metropolis, Shanghai, in what is now regarded as its golden and gilded age." -Andrew Field, Duke Kunshan University