Divorced person

Author: Chen Ran / Wei Erqiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: As a representative of "personalized writing," Chen Ran's novels, though filled with numerous indeterminate inner monologues, memory fragments, and imaginative shifts in time and space, have shed the unrestrained self of her previous writing and have been marked by social influences. Chen Ran herself has stated that these works represent a direction in her current creative exploration. "Modern life is becoming increasingly unnatural, with psychological anxieties and depression spreading faster than in any other era. This book explores the philosophical dimensions of modern people's feelings of alienation, disorientation, and insecurity." The novels are often set against the backdrop of a woman's solitary life to express the conflict between humanity and the world, the existential dilemmas of human beings, and the unique and complex or altered psychological states of women. The illustrations in this book are particularly distinctive, created by Wei Erqiao, a highly acclaimed painter in the illustration world, known as the "painter of prescriptions." A practicing cardiologist by profession, his pen-and-ink illustrations, whether commissioned or spontaneous, are celebrated for their philosophical ingenuity, boundless imagination, and pure subtlety among cultural readers. The over 50 new illustrations for this book differ from his previous minimalist linear style, with the delicate tones of colored pencils and the diffusion of ink creating dreamlike scenes and surreal imaginative spaces, working in harmony with Chen Ran's text in depicting psychological states. Against a dark blue background, a serene golden hue resembles "sapphire moonlight" (a phrase from Chen Ran), illuminating the chaos below. It is as if a solitary musician is playing a flute in the distance. The life on Sha Luo Street has become a relic of the past; I gaze at distant memories, as time, like a circular stream, flows before me in a loop. I seem to see the past of a stranger. — The Prophecy of the Hourglass Language This situation once again places me in a vast symbol, a state without the traces of a past hometown or a distant future homeland to take refuge in, an unprecedented and unparalleled state. — Breaking Through