Yu Dafu, modern Chinese writer, in two new books

December 7 is Yu Dafu’s birthday—What better to commemorate it than to announce two new books that study his legacy: Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture: A Comparative and Literary-Historical Reevaluation by Professor Hongjian Wang (Purdue University) and Rethinking the Modern Chinese Canon: Refractions across the Transpacific by Professor Clara Iwasaki (University of Alberta)

“A fascinating study, Decadence in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture analyzes work by literary luminaries such as Yu Dafu, Shao Xunmei, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Shuo, Wang Xiaobo, and Yin Lichuan, exposing writers’ use of the perverse and the decadent to counter traditional aesthetics and excessive politicization while carving out a new modern position for Chinese letters. This book brilliantly illuminates many hidden corners in a complex literary history.” —Professor Wendy Larson, University of Oregon —Professor Wendy Larson, U of Oregon, and author of Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture 

“Rethinking the Modern Chinese Canon uncovers forgotten processes of literary exchange and circulation from the Republican era to the post–Cold War era surrounding early modern Chinese literary figures Xiao Hong, Yu Dafu, Lao She, and Zhang Ailing. This original and innovative study not only offers a bold and refreshing approach to transpacific studies that is broader in scope than its existing North America–Asia paradigm but also prompts us to question the canonical formation of world and Chinese literatures.” —Professor E. K. Tan, Stony Brook University, and author of Rethinking Chineseness: Translational Sinophone Identities in the Nanyang Literary World 

Both books are part of the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Professor Victor H. Mair (University of Pennsylvania).

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