Overview

"More than eighty years after his death, Liu Na'ou (1905-1940) remains a fascinating figure. Liu was born in Taiwan, but early on he wrote that his future lay in Shanghai and did indeed spend the entirety of his glittering but all-too-brief career in his adopted city, working closely with a small coterie of like-minded friends and associates as an editor, writer, film critic, scenarist, and director. Liu introduced Japanese Shinkankakuha (New Sensationism) to China and made it an important school of modern Chinese urban fiction. Urban Scenes, his slim volume of modernist fiction, in particular, has had an outsized influence on Shanghai's image as a phantasmagoric metropolis in the 1920s and 1930s. 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. Like Japanese New Sensationists, who zeroed in on sensory responses to the new technologies rapidly transforming Tokyo after the Great Earthquake of 1923, Liu was fixated on the sights, sounds, and smells of Shanghai, that other throbbing metropolis of the Far East, and these came through in his writings. Liu's urban romances depict, as he himself put it, the ""thrill"" and ""carnal intoxication"" of modern urban life. His stories take place in Shanghai's nightclubs, race tracks, cinemas, and cafes-sites of moral depredation but also of erotic allure and excitement; therein lies the contradictory nature of his urban fiction, which gives us a vivid picture of early twentieth-century Shanghai. This complete translation of Liu's seminal work is available for the first time to researchers, students, and general readers interested in modern Chinese literature and culture. In addition to the eight stories in the original Urban Scenes, this collection includes an introduction by the translators and three additional pieces Liu published separately. The translations are based on the first editions of the Chinese texts. Urban Scenes is a valuable addition to collections in Chinese and Sinophone studies. This book is part of the Cambria Sinophone Translation Series (General Editor: Kyle Shernuk, Georgetown Univerity; Advisor: Christopher Lupke, University of Alberta)."

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9781638571872

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Reviews

"""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"

Author Information

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. Yaohua Shi is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Wake Forest University. He holds a PhD from Indiana University, and his previous publications include the Chinese-language textbook series Integrated Chinese. Judith Amory graduated from Radcliffe College and pursued doctoral studies in Russian literature at Columbia University. Since retiring from the Harvard University Library, she has catalogued Chinese language materials for the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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