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Join host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses one of its “small gems” selections: Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang, translated from the Chinese by Karen S. Kingsbury
Eileen Chang is one of the great writers of twentieth-century China, where she enjoys a passionate following both on the mainland and in Taiwan. At the heart of Chang’s achievement is her short fiction—tales of love, longing, and the shifting and endlessly treacherous shoals of family life. Written when Chang was still in her twenties, these extraordinary stories combine an unsettled, probing, utterly contemporary sensibility, keenly alert to sexual politics and psychological ambiguity, with an intense lyricism that echoes the classics of Chinese literature. Love in a Fallen City, the first collection in English of this dazzling body of work, introduces American readers to the stark and glamorous vision of a modern master.- NYRB Classics
Selections: Please read these three selections from the book.
- Aloewoods Incense - 69 pages.
- Love in A Fallen City - 56 pages
- Sealed Off - 14 pages.
Total: 139 pages.
Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Times: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. For those in Europe the time is 12:30AM in London on March 20
Location: Zoom Video Conference
Cost: Free
Reviews
"With language as sharp as a knife edge, Eileen Chang cut open a huge divide in Chinese culture, between the classical patriarchy and our troubled modernity. She was one of the very few who could see on both sides of that divide, into which her heroines so often disappeared. Eileen Chang is the fallen angel of Chinese literature, and now, with these excellent new translations, English readers can discover why she is so revered by Chinese readers everywhere."— Ang Lee
Photo Credit: NYRB Classics, Promotional Material, Public Domain