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Cold Nights (Han-yeh 《寒夜》) ranks alongside Pa Chin\’s earlier novel Family (Chia 《家》) in importance both as a masterpiece of fiction and as social commentary about China. It is in literature such as this that we see the work of a perceptive and critical eye dealing with a historic epoch, examining life with art and thereby striving to transform both. Pa China has long been recognized as a great modern writer, and the growing popularity of his work in translation testifies to his universal appeal and importance.
First published in 1947, the novel is set in Chungking at the end of World War II. It describes the strain of incompatible relationships between a mother, son, and daughter-in-law as they deteriorate amidst the social weariness and ennui which pervaded China in the 1940s. Victimized by circumstances and by themselves, they are average people seeking average lives; their plight is shared with the rest of humanity and is depicted with compassion tempered with unflinching realism.
作者簡介
Pa Chin, born in 1904 in Chengtu, Szechwan, experienced the social turmoil that accompanied the birth of modern China and produced a generation of youth committed to revolution. A self-professed anarchist, he found political inspiration in the writings of Kropotkin and of Emma Goldman, with whom he corresponded, and literary inspiration in Russian fiction. He probed the dynamics of social institutions during a time of radical change and, through the medium of fiction, eloquently communicated his vision of China\’s character. Pa Chin lives in the People\’s Republic of China, where he is a professional writer.
Nathan K. Mao was born in Kweiyang, Kweichou Province, China. He was educated at New Asia College (Hong Kong), Yale University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin (Platteville) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was a recipient of the 1978-1979 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Distinguished Faculty Awards. Dr. Mao has written Li Yu (Boston, 1977) and Pa Chin (Boston, 1978). He is an editor of Classical Chinese Fiction and Modern Chinese Fiction (Boston, 1978, 1981), as well as the translator of Li Yu\’s Twelve Towers (Hong Kong, 1975) and co-translator of Fortress Besieged (Bloomington, 1979). At present, Dr. Mao is Professor of English at Shippensburg State University, Pennsylvania.
Liu Ts\’un-yan is Professor Emeritus in Chinese at the Australian National University and had been a visiting professor at Columbia and Harvard. With a Ph.D. and a D.Litt. from the University of London, he is also a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Among his many writings in English are Buddhist and Taoist Influence on Chinese Novels, Chinese Popular Fiction in Two London Libraries, Wu Ch\’eng-en: His Life and Career and Selected Papers from the Hall of Harmonious Wind. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 1992.
