Novel
Moment in Peking
Lin Yutang · 1939
Synopsis
In Peking, around 1900, during the Boxer rising, wealthy families leave the city. On the road, the young Yao Mulan is separated from her family, abducted and sold to traffickers; the Tsengs rescue her, and the two houses become friends before allying themselves through marriages. The novel then follows three great families, the Yaos, the Tsengs and the Nius, through nearly forty years of Chinese history: the republican revolution, the warlords, the rise of nationalism and communism, and the beginnings of the war against Japan.
Context
Settled in the United States, the author spent a year in Paris from 1938 and wrote the novel there, which John Day published in 1939. To prepare for it, he had translated passages of Dream of the Red Chamber, from which he took the way of presenting characters through their clothes, jewellery, speech and cooking. His eldest daughter saw in it the influence of Zhuangzi, according to the Lin Yutang foundation. He wanted Yu Dafu to translate it into Chinese, but Yu died during the war without having gone beyond the first part; the version by Zhang Zhenyu, published in 1977 under the title Jinghua yanyun, is today the most read. In French, the translation by François Fosca appeared with Philippe Picquier in 2004 under the title Un moment à Pékin.
Who it is for
A long family novel composed in English for Western readers; the French version by François Fosca exists in paperback.
Prizes and reception
The novel gave rise to three television series, in 1988, 2005 and 2014, and Lin Yutang was nominated six times for the Nobel.
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