Selected Stories of Xiao Hong [antikvár]

Introduction IT is generally agreed that the reputation of a novelist is not always well served by anthologies of his (or her) short stories, for the two genres are so radically different that few writers have been able to master both. Xiao Hong seems to be a notable exception, for two compelling reasons: the novels for which she is justifiably famous among modern Chinese writers tend to be so episodic and cinematic that one can often discern the essence of one or more short stories buried in the body of the novels;* and the themes, character types, and writing styles of both her short and long works have marked similarities. Given what we know of Xiao Hong's life and artistic temperament,** including the fact that while she was physically ill and caught up in the war with Japan, she wrote one full-length novel and the first two volumes of a planned trilogy, we must conclude that she * Her first novel, The Field of Life and Death (Shengsi chang), was published in 1955. Part I of Ma Bole was published in 1940. while Part II appeared the following year in serialized form in a Hong Kong literary magazine. Tales of Hulan River {Htdanhe zhtcan) was published in 1941. All of these novels have recently been republished by the Heilongjiang People's Publishing House. Translations of The Field of Life and Death and Tales of Hulan River (two volumes in one) have appeared in the Indiana University Press translation series (1979). **Sec Howard Goldblatt: Hsiao Hung {Xiao Hong), Boston, 1976.