Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family
Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family

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Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family

Book: Paperback 25 - 07 - 2016

Product ID: 1768140

Condition: New
  • Stanford University Press

Publisher : Stanford University Press

Language : English

Paperback : 292 Pages

ISBN-10 : 1503601064

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Product Description Historical novels can be windows into other cultures and eras, but it's not always clear what's fact and what's fiction. Thousands have read Ba Jin's influential novel Family, but few realize how much he shaped his depiction of 1920s China to suit his story and his politics. In Fact in Fiction, Kristin Stapleton puts Ba Jin's bestseller into full historical context, both to illustrate how it successfully portrays human experiences during the 1920s and to reveal its historical distortions. Stapleton's attention to historical evidence and clear prose that directly addresses themes and characters from Family create a book that scholars, students, and general readers will enjoy. She focuses on Chengdu, China, Ba Jin's birthplace and the setting for Family, which was also a cultural and political center of western China. The city's richly preserved archives allow Stapleton to create an intimate portrait of a city that seemed far from the center of national politics of the day but clearly felt the forces of―and contributed to―the turbulent stream of Chinese history. Review "This book is beautifully written and a real pleasure to read. It offers a useful complement to Family that will enable readers to understand the social context and political implications of Ba Jin's work. It is also an instructive example of how to read literary sources with attention to their motivation and historical context." (Henrietta Harrison University of Oxford) "What a marvelous resource for literature and world history courses! Stapleton provides invaluable insights on one of the most widely read modern Chinese novels, Ba Jin's Family. Beautifully written, Fact in Fiction invites students to research Chinese society and literature, and to explore how fiction shapes historical understanding. An excellent contribution!" (Roberta Martin Columbia University) "With insightful readings and incisive research Kristin Stapleton illustrates how Ba Jin captured the emotional truth about idealistic students in the May Fourth era while over-simplifying the history. The book is a beautiful demonstration of the ways historical research can enhance our understanding of fiction, and fiction can enrich our understanding of history." (Paul S. Ropp Clark University) About the Author Kristin Stapleton is Associate Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is also the author of Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937 (2000) and a member of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Fact in Fiction 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family By Kristin Stapleton STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESSCopyright © 2016 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5036-0106-2 Contents List of Illustrations, Acknowledgments, Introduction: Ba Jin's Fiction and Twentieth-Century Chinese History, 1. Mingfeng: The Life of a Chinese Slave Girl, 2. The Patriarch: Chengdu's Gentry, 3. Juexin's City: The Chengdu Economy, 4. Sedan-Chair Bearers, Beggars, Actors, and Prostitutes: The Worlds of the Urban Poor, 5. Students, Soldiers, and Warlords: Protest and Warfare in the City, 6. Qin: Chengdu and the "New Woman", 7. Juehui: Revolution, Reform, and Development in Chengdu, Epilogue: Family and City in China's Twentieth-Century Revolutions, Appendix 1: Timeline of Chengdu's History and Ba Jin's Life, Appendix 2: List of Turbulent Stream Characters, with Pinyin and Wade-Giles Romanizations, Notes, Glossary, Works Cited, Index, CHAPTER 1 Mingfeng The Life of a Chinese Slave Girl This chapter begins our exploration of 1920s Chengdu not with the most powerful but with the most vulnerable members of the traditional household structure, slave girls, whose status was surprisingly little affected by the tide of social change in the early twentieth century. Here we take a closer look at the realities behind the character

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