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Taipei People Author: Pai Hsien-yung Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
Taipei People Author: Pai Hsien-yung Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
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Description
Introduction · · · · · ·
As one of the top 100 Chinese novels of the 20th century, Taipei People is a complex collection of short stories, consisting of 14 first-rate short stories. When connected together, the effect is greatly increased. Not only does the scope of the novel become wider, allowing us to see the "living beings" of society, but more importantly, due to the repeated theme and mutual support, we can further understand the meaning of the work and get a glimpse of the author's outlook on life and the universe hidden in the work. The characters in Taipei People can be said to include all levels of Taipei urban society: from the elderly and upright Confucian general Pu Gong (Liangfu Yin) to the retired maid Shun En Sao (Si Jiu Fu), from the upper-class Mrs. Dou (Dream of the Garden) to the lower-class "Commander-in-Chief" (Lonely Flower). There are intellectuals, such as Professor Yu Xinlei in "Winter Night"; there are businessmen, such as the proprietress of "Huaqiao Rongji"; there are domestic workers, such as Wang Xiong in "The Blood-Red Azalea"; there are people in the army, such as Lai Mingsheng in "New Year's Eve"; there are socialites, such as Yin Xueyan; there are low-level dancers, such as Jin Daban. These "big" people, "middle" people and "small" people come from different provinces or cities in mainland China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Sichuan, Hunan, Guilin, Beijing, etc.). They are rich and poor, and have different industries, but none of them does not carry a heavy and unbreakable past. And this "past", this "memory", is more or less directly related to the "times of great troubles" from the founding of the Republic of China to the fall of the mainland.
About the Author · · · · · ·
Bai Xianyong is a novelist, essayist, critic and playwright. He was born in Guilin, Guangxi in 1937. He graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University and obtained a master's degree in literary creation from the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. His novels have been translated into many languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean, and have countless readers at home and abroad. He has written short story collections such as "Lonely Seventeen Years Old", "Taipei People" and "The New Yorker", novel "Bad Son", essay collections such as "Looking Back Suddenly", "Star Cafe", "The Sixth Finger", "The Tree Is Still Like This", film scripts such as "The Last Night of Lady Jin", "Sister Yuqing", "Lonely Love Flower", "The Last Nobleman", etc. He has reorganized the opera "The Peony Pavilion" by the great Ming Dynasty playwright Tang Xianzu and "The Jade Hairpin" by Gao Lian, and wrote biographies of his father Bai Chongxi and his family.
