Illusions of Disillusionment Author: [French] Balzac Translator: Fu Lei Publisher: China Yanshi Publishing House

"Disillusionment" reveals the inside story of the literary and journalistic circles, and concentrates on the author's main life experiences and deep life feelings. It is one of the valuable works in "Human Comedy". The novel tells the story of two talented and ambitious young people who failed in their struggles and their ideals were shattered: one is a talented young man who dreams of winning fame in the literary world with his brilliant writing, but in a society where literature has become a commodity, he degenerates into a shameless literary slave who sells his soul and is ruined in the literary world and party struggles; the other young man is a hard-working inventor, but because of his kind heart, he cannot resist the sinister calculations of his peers, so he is forced to give up his invention patent and bury his ideal of scientific research. The work reflects the social situation and mental state of a whole generation of young people after the French Revolution.

Balzac (1799-1850), a French novelist, is known as the father of modern French novels. He wrote a lot of works throughout his life, including 91 novels, collectively known as The Human Comedy. Balzac's greatest contribution to realistic literature lies in his detailed portrayal of typical characters and social customs, and his expression of the changes and development of characters in the social environment. The characters he created, such as Old Goriot, Grandet, Gobseck, Rastignac, Lucien, Cousin Bette, and Vautrin, have almost become model images of different types of bourgeois representatives in literary history, and have a profound influence on world literature.

About the Translator:

Fu Lei (1908-1966), also known as Nuan and Nuan'an, was born in Xiasha Township, Nanhui County, Jiangsu Province (now Hangtou Town, Pudong New Area). He was a famous Chinese translator, writer, educator and art critic. He studied at the University of Paris in France in his early years. Fu Lei hated evil all his life. Most of his translations were about exposing social ills and describing people's struggles. He translated a large number of French works, including works by Balzac, Romain Rolland, Voltaire and other famous writers.