Novel
Tales of Hulan River
呼蘭河傳
Xiao Hong · 1940
Synopsis
The book first paints the town of Hulan, its long winters, its festivals and its beliefs. A child then takes up the narration: she follows her grandfather into the garden, imitates him as he plants and weeds, and learns poems from him. Last come the people she sees living around her: a very young bride brought to a carter's house, who is tormented and subjected to the ritual of a healer; an old bachelor housed by others; a miller and his family.
Context
The idea of the book goes back to the author's stay in Japan in 1936; she began it in Wuhan in 1937 and finished it in Hong Kong, where it appeared as a serial from 1940 in a local daily, before a volume published in Guilin in 1941. Britannica, on the contrary, dates its completion and publication to 1942. Communist critics at first reproached it for keeping away from the struggles of the time; Mao Dun defended it in a 1946 preface, in which he called it at once a narrative poem, a portrait of manners and a sad song.
Who it is for
A novel without a continuous plot, made of tableaux and portraits; translated into French in 2011, in a bilingual edition.
Prizes and reception
Britannica regards it as her best-known work and sees in it a new lyrical form, between a novel and a true account.
Sources for this page 7
The pages consulted to check this page.