Novel
Fortress Besieged
圍城
Qian Zhongshu · 1947
Synopsis
After years of idle study in Europe, Fang Hongjian returns to China with a doctorate bought from an imaginary American university. On the ship, he courts the flighty Miss Bao, who leaves him in Hong Kong for her fiancé. In Shanghai, he competes with Zhao Xinmei for Su Wenwan and falls for her cousin Tang Xiaofu, with no more success. He then accepts a post at Sanlü University, founded far from the coast, where his colleagues' intrigues occupy him as much as the young Sun Roujia.
Context
Qian Zhongshu wrote the novel in Shanghai, under the Japanese occupation, from 1944 to 1946. It first appeared as a serial in the review Wenyi fuxing, then in book form in May 1947 from Chenguang, according to Chinawriter. The title takes up a French proverb that compares marriage to a besieged fortress: those outside want to get in, those inside want to get out. The book remained unobtainable in the People's Republic of China as in Taiwan until the early 1980s. The Los Angeles Review of Books reports that C. T. Hsia counted it among the greatest Chinese novels of the century. An English translation appeared in 1979, a French one in 1987.
Who it is for
A satirical and funny novel, full of witticisms; French version by Sylvie Servan-Schreiber and Wang Lou.
Prizes and reception
The name of the hero's fictional university now designates, in Chinese, any bogus foreign degree.
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