Novel
Family
家
Ba Jin · 1933
Synopsis
In Chengdu, in the early twenties, three brothers live in the great house of their grandfather Gao, a patriarch who arranges marriages according to the customs of the ancestors. The eldest, Juexin, accepts the wife chosen for him while loving his cousin Mei. The second, Juemin, loves his cousin Qin and refuses the betrothal being prepared for him. The youngest, Juehui, nourished on the ideas of May Fourth, is the most rebellious; he becomes attached to the maidservant Mingfeng, whom the patriarch intends as a concubine for an old man.
Context
The novel first appeared as a serial, in 1931 and 1932, under the title Torrent, then in volume form in 1933 under that of Family; it opens the Torrent trilogy, followed by Spring and Autumn. Ba Jin transposed his childhood in a four-generation household in Chengdu, and the book struck a chord with young people at once. Sidney Shapiro translated it into English in 1958, and Olga Lang gave in 1972 an edition restoring cut passages; in French, it appeared in 1979 from Flammarion, in the translation by Li Tche-houa and Jacqueline Alézaïs.
Who it is for
A long novel, the first part of a trilogy, which can be read without knowing what follows; it exists in paperback.
Prizes and reception
The book immediately found its audience among young readers and opened its author's best-known trilogy.
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