The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Lu Xun (Author), Julia Lovell (Translator, Introduction), Yiyun Li (Afterword)

Book Description

Release date: January 26, 2010 | Series: Penguin Classics

Read the Time magazine review about "the most significant Penguin Classic ever published".

In the early twentieth century, as China came up against the realities of the modern world, Lu Xun effected a shift in Chinese letters away from the ornate, obsequious literature of the aristocrats to the plain, expressive literature of the masses. His celebrated short stories assemble a powerfully unsettling portrait of the superstition, poverty, and complacency that he perceived in late imperial China and in the revolutionary republic that toppled the last dynasty in 1911. This volume presents Lu Xun's complete fiction in bracing new translations and includes such famous works as "The Real Story of Ah-q," "Diary of a Madman," and "The Divorce." Together they expose a contradictory legacy of cosmopolitan independence, polemical fractiousness, and anxious patriotism that continues to resonate in Chinese intellectual life today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lu Xun is not just a great writer. He is an essential writer-the kind whose works provide the clues an outsider needs to unlock the cultural code of a nation, and whose work becomes embedded in a nation's DNA. . . . This affordable volume comprises . . . his complete fiction. Julia Lovell's are arguably the most accessible translations yet. . . . Together, they give Lu Xun his best shot to date of achieving renown beyond the Chinese world. If it succeeds in this, the book could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published."
-Time

"Julia Lovell and Penguin have done Chinese modern literature a great service in bringing this passionate, witty and bleakly nostalgic work to what one hopes will be a wider audience. Lovell's introduction is excellent."
-The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Lu Xun (1881-1936) is one of the paradigmatic figures of twentieth-century Chinese literature. Despite his public commitment to Marxist literary ideals, Lu Xun's final years were spent mired in squabbles with the Chinese Communist Party's representatives of ideological orthodoxy. When he died he bequeathed to modern Chinese letters a contradictory legacy of cosmopolitan independence, polemical fractiousness and anxious patriotism that continues to resonate in Chinese intellectual life today. Julia Lovell is Queen's College Research Fellow in Modern Chinese Literature and Cultural History. She has translated the novels I Love Dollars by Zhu wen, Serve the People by Yan Lianke, and A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong. She has also edited and translated in part Lust, Caution, a collection of short stories by Eileen Chang. Dr Lovell is author of The Great Wall: China against the World, 1000 BC-AD 2000 and The Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (January 26, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140455485
• ISBN-13: 978-0140455489
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,540 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent anthology May 3, 2010

By Mr. Leong Wai Hong

Format:Paperback

Lu Xun is famous for his short stories which point out the lack of compassion and lack of honesty in Chinese society during the late Imperial china.

Lu Xun is a pen-name. His real name is Zhou Shu Ren. Born in 1881 to a scholar family he abandoned the path of studying for the imperial civil service exams to study medicine in Japan. He abandoned his study after seeing a slide of the execution of a Chinese by the Japanese in front of a group of apathetic Chinese. He came to the conclusion that a nation of healthy people is useless if they are intellectually and spiritually weak. After his Damascene experience he abandoned his medical studies and turned to writing to galvanise the Chinese people.

There are 2 English translations of his complete short stories. The earlier is by William Lyell published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1990. The latest is by Julia Lovell published by Penguin in 2009 with an Afterword by Yiyun Li.

Lyell's translation is more accessible compared to Lovell's though his footnotes are more and better. Lyell's version also has wonderful caricatures illustrations of The Real Story of Ah-Q. Lovell's has no illustrations. The Afterword by Li , to me , is inconsequential and does not add to the readers' appreciation of the importance of Lu Xun as an important founding figure of modern Chinese literature. For me, the best of Lu Xun's short stories are ' The Real story of Ah-Q' , ' Diary of a Madman' and 'Kong Yi Ji'.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A master of short stories September 18, 2011

By Mike

Format:Paperback

The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, published by Penguin Classics, and translated by Julia Lovell.

Lovell's translation is very smooth, clear, and accessible. I can't compare it to the older translations, but I can't imagine being disappointed by this one. Her ~25-page introduction is informative, as are the annotations, which can be found in the back of the book. The binding is on par with any other Penguin Classic - the spine will inevitably crease upon reading, but the pages are very secure (in my copy, anyway).

Lu Xun (pen name of Zhou Shuren) was a highly influential short story writer and essayist who lived through China's revolution and subsequent social and political tumults in the early 20th century. He was both renowned and scorned for writing with base, common language rather than the lofty language of aristocrats that was popular at the time. His earlier stories are idealistic and extremely critical of traditional Chinese society, but as he ages and matures, they become more personal, nostalgic, and bleak. The final few stories in the collection are retellings of traditional Chinese folk tales. I highly recommend reading Lu Xun - his stories are filled with wisdom, understatement, irony, love, tragedy, and everything else human. I loved every story in the book - it belongs on a shelf alongside the world's finest literature.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A great writer indeed. March 16, 2012

By Piet de Groot

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have enjoyed this book. Like the style of Lu Xun here. This book can be taken as an interesting book on ancient Chinese life and culture and at the same time one is able to extract much more if read for technique and style, giving an insight in how the poor lived in those times. The gradual building up of Ah-Q's personae shows just what a literary giant Lu Xun really was. A Great book, one of many I bought from Amazon.