The Collected Works of Eileen Chang · The Golden Cangue

Author: Eileen Chang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: She is a mysterious writer who excels at transforming life into art and is filled with almost romantic tragic emotions. She is from a noble family but takes pride in being self-reliant. She feels empathy for others yet can always see the pitiable and amusing aspects of the common people. She can enjoy the spotlight and the loneliness of being alone at the same time. This alone is enough to make her a tragic legend.
Thirty years ago in Shanghai, on a moonlit night, we might not have caught sight of the moon from thirty years ago. Young people imagine the moon from thirty years ago as a copper coin-sized, red and yellow, damp halo, like a teardrop on a letter from Yun Chen Xuan. It is old and hazy. Older people recall the moon from thirty years ago as joyful, bigger, rounder, and whiter than the moon today. Yet, looking back after thirty years of hardship, even the best moonlight cannot escape a touch of melancholy.
Eileen Chang exists in the history of modern Chinese literature as an outstanding writer, not as a strange or eccentric figure. Perhaps she will not only belong to the history of modern literature. Imagine decades or centuries from now, she might hold a stable position in the history of Chinese literature, much like Li Qingzhao, whom she admired. And we know that by then, many of the modern writers we are familiar with today will likely be forgotten.
This book includes: The Golden Cangue; Love in a Fallen City; Jasmine Tea; Incense; Second Incense; Blockade; After the Performance.
Eileen Chang's literary works are built upon the intersection of her personal crisis period and the crisis period of modern Chinese history. Her personal history and modern Chinese history meet, resonate, and oppose each other, presenting the life patterns of the times through literature. Her personal history and modern Chinese history are intertwined around the theme of life, competing yet complementing each other, highlighting their shared values within the context of the era.
Eileen Chang's literature emerged in occupied Shanghai in the 1940s. For a long time, it has existed outside the mainstream discourse system of China, much like the special time and space of its birth, continuing to thrive among Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese communities.