The Diary of Lady Saffy

Author: Ding Ling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: Classics are the treasures left behind by time, portraits and annotations of human nature. The significance of classics lies in their freshness with every reading, remaining an unchanging landscape on the bookshelves of readers through the ages. In the ever-changing flow of time and life, where nothing can be repeated, classics are the words, sounds, and expressions that have conquered time. Those sincere statements, those fearless cries, those reflections on the human spirit, awaken our past hopes, inspire our current courage, and free us from emptiness, vanity, and doubt about the future. These images of wise people and their timeless words purify our souls, our spirits, and teach us what can be missed but never forgotten, and what is fleeting yet invaluable.
The authors included in "Glimpses of Masterpieces of Classic Fiction" are all scavengers and pioneers of modern Chinese literature, as well as experimenters and pioneers of various new artistic forms. No wonder Shi Zhecun, with a touch of pride, once told me, somewhat dismissive of the various artistic explorations of his younger contemporaries in the 1980s, especially their attempts at many "avant-garde" modernist techniques like symbolism, impressionism, and stream of consciousness: "All of this, we did in the 1930s, and even better than they did. It’s nothing new."
Indeed, every era has its own literature. But classic literature belongs not only to its own time but also to later generations of readers who can appreciate and share an artistic connection with it. The Diary of a Lady Saffy was written by the author in 1927. It is a diary-style novel depicting the lives of several young people in Beijing in the years following the May Fourth Movement. With bold, unfiltered brushstrokes, the author portrays the stubborn and rebellious personality of the female protagonist, Saffy, while clearly revealing the tragic consequences of the rebellion of a social outcast. Saffy’s character is representative; she seeks true love, seeks herself, and hopes to be truly understood. She wants to break away from the old forces, but she cannot find anything new. Her dissatisfaction is directed at the society of her time.
Ding Ling was renowned in the 1920s for her bold feminist consciousness, keen literary sensibility, and delicate narrative style. The Diary of a Lady Saffy reflects the anxieties and pursuits of young intellectual women of that era, becoming an immortal work in literature. Written in the mid-to-late 1940s, The Sun Shines Over the Sanggan River is the pinnacle of her literary career and won the 1951 Stalin Prize. The Diary of a Lady Saffy is one of the volumes in the "Series of Hundred Masterpieces of Modern Chinese Literature."