Fact in fiction : 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Fact in fiction : 1920s China and Ba Jin's Family
Stanford University Press, c2016
- : pbk
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-268) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Historical novels can be windows into other cultures and eras, but it's not always clear what's fact and what's fiction. Thousands have read Ba Jin's influential novel Family, but few realize how much he shaped his depiction of 1920s China to suit his story and his politics. In Fact in Fiction, Kristin Stapleton puts Ba Jin's bestseller into full historical context, both to illustrate how it successfully portrays human experiences during the 1920s and to reveal its historical distortions.
Stapleton's attention to historical evidence and clear prose that directly addresses themes and characters from Family create a book that scholars, students, and general readers will enjoy. She focuses on Chengdu, China, Ba Jin's birthplace and the setting for Family, which was also a cultural and political center of western China. The city's richly preserved archives allow Stapleton to create an intimate portrait of a city that seemed far from the center of national politics of the day but clearly felt the forces of-and contributed to-the turbulent stream of Chinese history.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Ba Jin's Fiction and Twentieth-Century Chinese History
1. Mingfeng: The Life of a Chinese Slave Girl
2. The Patriarch: Chengdu's Gentry
3. Juexin's City: The Chengdu Economy
4. Sedan-Chair Bearers, Beggars, Actors, and Prostitutes: The Worlds of the Urban Poor
5. Students, Soldiers, and Warlords: Protest and Warfare in the City
6. Qin: Chengdu and the "New Woman"
7. Juehui: Revolution, Reform, and Development in Chengdu
Epilogue: Family and City in China's Twentieth-Century Revolutions
by "Nielsen BookData"