Mei Niang’s Long-Lost First Writings Young Lady’s Collection

Description

In 1944 the novel Xie (Crabs) by Mei Niang (1916-2013) was honored with the Japanese Empire’s highest literary award Novel of the Year. Then at the peak of her popularity Mei Niang published in Japanese-owned Chinese-language journals and newspapers in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (1932-1945) Japan and north China. Contemporaries lauded her writings especially for introducing liberalism to Manchuria’s literary world. In Maoist China however Mei Niang was condemned as a traitor and a Rightist with her life and career torn to shreds until her formal vindication in the late 1970s. In 1997 Mei Niang was named one of Modern China's 100 Writers. The collection that is translated in this volume Xiaojie ji (Young lady’s collection) was published in 1936 when she was 19 years old. Long thought forever lost in the violence of China’s civil war and Maoist strife the collection was only re-discovered in 2019. This is the first book-length English-language translation of the work of this high-profile prolific New Woman writer from Northeast China. Mei Niang’s Long-Lost First Writings will appeal to those interested in Chinese literature the Japanese Empire historic fiction history women’s/gender history and students in undergraduate and graduate level courses. To date English-language volumes of translated Chinese literature have rarely focused on Manchukuo’s Chinese writers or centered on those who left the puppet state by1935. This volume fills an important historical lacuna – a teenaged Chinese woman’s views of life and literature in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. | Mei Niang’s Long-Lost First Writings Young Lady’s Collection