The Adventures of Ma Suzhen
'An Heroic Woman Takes Revenge in Shanghai'
Buch in deiner Nähe kaufen
Beschreibung
If you love wuxia (“knight-errant” tales), this book is an absolute must-read. Charming and delightfully humorous, it follows the adventures and bloodstained justice of the effervescent heroine, Ma Suzhen. Bevan’s superb writing style and helpful introduction make this a wonderful initiation into Chinese Republican popular fiction and the world of wuxia.
Dr Amy Matthewson, author of Cartooning China: ‘Punch’, Power, and Politics in the Victorian Era.
Part newspaper shocker, part fact, part invention and many miles from The Dream of the Red Chamber, this is the sort of story people loved to read in early-twentieth-century China – an exciting and amusing example of truly popular Chinese fiction.
Dr Frances Wood, retired curator of the Chinese Collections in the British Library and author of many books, including Great Books of China(2017).
The comic novel, TheAdventures of Ma Suzhen, was written during a highpoint in the popularity of xia “knight-errant” fiction. It is an action-packed tale of a young woman who takes revenge for her brother, Ma Yongzhen, a gangster and performing strongman, who has been murdered by a rival gang in China’s most cosmopolitan city, Shanghai. After publication of the book in 1923, the character of Ma Suzhen appeared on stage, and subsequently in a film made by the Mingxing Film Company. The book version translated here, displays a delightful combination of the xia and popular“Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” genres, with additional elements of Gong’an “court case” fiction. The translation is followed by an essay that explores the background to the legend of Ma Suzhen – a fictional figure, whose exhilarating escapades reflect some of the new possibilities and freedoms available to women following the founding of the Chinese Republic.
Dr Paul Bevan is Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. His current research addresses a variety of themes concerning popular fiction and the visual arts as they appeared in periodicals and magazines published in Shanghai during the first decades of the twentieth century.
The comic novel, The Adventures of Ma Suzhen, was written during a highpoint in the popularity of xia “knight-errant” fiction. It is an action-packed tale of a young woman who takes revenge for her brother, Ma Yongzhen, a gangster and performing strongman, who has been murdered by a rival gang in China’s most cosmopolitan city, Shanghai. After publication of the book in 1923, the character of Ma Suzhen appeared on stage, and subsequently in a film made by the Mingxing Film Company. The book version translated here, displays a delightful combination of the xia and popular“Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” genres, with additional elements of Gong’an “court case” fiction. The translation is followed by an essay that explores the background to the legend of Ma Suzhen – a fictional figure, whose exhilarating escapades reflect some of the new possibilities and freedoms available to women following the founding of the Chinese Republic.
Presents the first English translation of 'The Adventures of Ma Suzhen', an exciting, all-action novel published in 1920s Shanghai Features an illuminating academic essay that contextualises the comic tale, and reveals its multiple lives as a stage play, film and novel Contributes to the growing interest in martial arts and ‘knight-errant’ novels worldwide, while feeding into the general reading public’s increasing demand for books in this genre in English translation
Autor*in
Paul Bevan
Themen in »The Adventures of Ma Suzhen«
Ma Suzen Chinese literature 1920s literature Ma Yongzhen 'Knight-errant' tradition female knight-errant comedic adventure story modern Chinese popular culture 1920s China
Stimmen zu »The Adventures of Ma Suzhen«
“Seeing injustice, Ma Suzhen does her best to right it, in fairly dramatic fashion (often with a bit of a comic touch to it as well). … Bevan's supporting apparatus and especially his afterword-essay provide a good deal of information and context, making for a more interesting whole. … It's neat to see a piece of 1920s popular Chinese literature like this -- far too little is available in translation … .” (M.A.Orthofer, complete-review.com, March 9, 2022)
()