Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk

by Lu Xun, Eileen J. Cheng (Translator), Theodore Huters (Editor)

Overview

A brilliant new translation of the short improvisational fiction and memoirs of Lu Xun, the father of modern Chinese literature.

This captivating translation assembles two volumes by Lu Xun, the founder of modern Chinese literature and one of East Asia’s most important thinkers at the turn of the twentieth century. Wild Grass and Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk represent a pinnacle of achievement alongside Lu Xun’s famed short stories.

In Wild Grass, a collection of twenty-three experimental pieces, surreal scenes come alive through haunting language and vivid imagery. These are landscapes populated by ghosts, talking animals, and sentient plants, where a protagonist might come face-to-face with their own corpse. By depicting the common struggle of real and imagined creatures to survive in an inhospitable world, Lu Xun asks the deceptively simple question, “What does it mean to be human?”

Alongside Wild Grass is Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk, a memoir in eight essays capturing the literary master’s formative years and featuring a motley cast of dislocated characters—children, servants, outcasts, the dead and the dying. Giving voice to vulnerable subjects and depicting their hopes and despair as they negotiate an unforgiving existence, Morning Blossoms affirms the value of all beings and elucidates a central predicament of the human condition: feeling without a home in the world.

Beautifully translated and introduced by Eileen J. Cheng, these lyrical texts blur the line between autobiography and literary fiction. Together the two collections provide a new window into Lu Xun’s mind and his quest to find beauty and meaning in a cruel and unjust world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674261167
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lu Xun (1881–1936), born Zhou Shuren, was a writer of fiction, essayist, poet, translator, and literary critic.

Eileen J. Cheng is Professor of Chinese at Pomona College. She is author of Literary Remains: Death, Trauma, and Lu Xun’s Refusal to Mourn and coeditor of Jottings under Lamplight, a collection of Lu Xun’s essays.

Theodore Huters is Professor Emeritus of Chinese at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Chief Editor of Renditions, the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s translation journal. He is author of Bringing the World Home: Appropriations of the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China, editor of China’s New Order, and coeditor of Revolutionary Literature in China.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Wild Grass

Bordering on the Divine: Translators Introduction to Wild Grass 7

Preface to the English Translation of Wild Grass (1932) 28

Inscriptions 31

Autumn Night 33

The Shadow's Farewell 36

The Alms Seeker 38

My Lost Love 40

Revenge 42

Revenge (II) 44

Hope 46

Snow 49

The Kite 51

Story of Good Things 55

The Passerby 58

Dead Fire 66

The Dog's Retort 69

The Good Hell That Was Lost 70

Tombstone Inscriptions 73

Tremors on the Border of Degradation 75

An Argument 79

After Death 81

Such a Fighter 86

The Clever Man, the Fool, and the Slave 88

The Preserved Leaf 91

Amid the Pale Bloodstains 93

Awakening 95

Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk

Vulnerable Subjects: Translators Introduction to Morning Blossoms Gathered at Dusk 103

Introductory Note 126

Dogs • Cats • Mice 129

Ah Chang and The Classic of Mountains and Seas 141

The Illustrated Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars 150

Fair of the Five Fierce Gods 159

Wu Chang [Life Is Unpredictable] 165

From the Garden of Myriad Grasses to the Three Flavors Studio 175

Father's Illness 182

Trivial Recollections 190

Professor Fujino 201

Fan Ainong 210

Afterword 221

Notes 241

Lu Xun's Oeuvre 261

Acknowledgments 263

Editorial Reviews

Cheng utilizes her freedom as a translator to render Lu Xun’s works as beautiful in English as they are in Chinese…Demystifying his writing, Cheng captures the magic, somberness, humor, and lyricism of his works, demonstrating that wisdom and playfulness coexist as often as they are diametrically opposed. This book is not just a testament to Cheng’s brilliance as a translator, but also to her masterful understanding of his works.

Columbia Journal of Literary Criticism

Splendid…Inward-looking and ruminative.

Asian Books Blog - Nicky Harman

In this fresh and vivid translation, we behold an amazing mind at work. Rich, daring, haunting, and personal, these volumes are nothing short of revelatory.

Gish Jen

Two unique works from Lu Xun’s oeuvre—an experiment in prose poetry partially inspired by Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Buddhism, and a personal memoir that compares with Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood—are rendered in lucid and very readable English and collected in one volume, together with comprehensive and insightful introductions. A sizable achievement from an experienced translator and Lu Xun scholar.

Leo Ou-fan Lee

A very timely publication. The first translation of these works in over four decades offers a more accurate, fluent rendering that will be welcomed by students of Chinese literature and enjoyed by many general readers. Explanatory footnotes throughout will also be a great help to those new to Lu Xun.

Carlos Rojas