When the avant-garde writer Mu Shiying was assassinated in 1940, China lost one of its greatest modernist writers while Shanghai lost its most detailed chronicler of the city's Jazz-Age nightlife. Mu'
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The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China is the first monograph in English on a controversial Ming dynasty literary figure. It examines and re-assesses the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587–1646), a poet, dramatist, and politician in the late Ming period. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly regarded poet, but is best known as a dramatist, and his poetry is now largely unknown. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming–Qing transition, and as a result his literary work―his plays as well as his poetry―has been neglected and undervalued. Hardie argues that Ruan’s literary work is of much greater significance in the history of Chinese literature than has generally been recognised since his own time. Ruan, rather than being a transgressive figure, is actually a very typical late Ming literatus, and as such his attitudes towards identity and authenticity can add to our understanding of these issues in late Ming intel
他極力穿越那深沉的絕望、努力抓住一點微弱光源、緩緩向前邁進的堅定意志。那或許是費滋傑羅身為作家的強韌本能。──村上春樹村上春樹 X 費滋傑羅兩大文學心靈一次收藏！村上春樹持續譯介費滋傑羅作品超過40年首次親自編選、翻譯、撰文介紹8篇小說 ＋ 5則隨筆費滋傑羅人生黑暗的1930年代，閃耀難以撼動之美的作品集──特別收錄──村上春樹編選後記‧親撰各篇解說‧鍾愛篇章〈我所失落的城市〉、〈酗酒個案〉美國最傳奇作家 費滋傑羅人生最艱辛時期，淬鍊耀眼經典「我必須繼續當個作家，這是我唯一的生存之道。」 ──費滋傑羅▌關於費滋傑羅的後期創作費滋傑羅生前撰寫超過一百五十篇短篇小說，分別發表於《週六晚郵報》、《科利爾週刊》、《君子》等雜誌，其中〈班傑明的奇幻旅程〉曾經改編成電影（2008）。本書所收錄的十三篇，是費滋傑羅發表於1930年至1939年的作品，包括短篇小說及隨筆。這個時期是他的健康、婚姻、財務都出現狀況，生活備感壓力之時。曾經是文化金童、媒體追逐對象的費滋傑羅，在《大亨小傳》出版後叫好不叫座，1934年推出的《夜未央》連好評都沒有的情況下，收入主要依靠短篇的發表，後期更為好萊塢電影編劇，以便償還債務。1938年底，他和好萊塢電影劇組一起參加冬季嘉年華，卻喝酒鬧事，當場被開除。龐大債務加上事業受挫，他開始酗酒。1939年夏天，因為健康惡化，許多作品都只能在床上完成。1940年他決意要在短時間內寫出《最後一個影壇大亨》，卻因心臟病突發去世，留下六章傑作。文評家亞瑟・麥茲納（Arthur Mizener）在傳記《費滋傑羅》寫道：「《號音》（Taps at Reveille）出版之後到進軍好萊塢之前寫的短篇小說，和未完成的《最後一個影壇大亨》，共同形成費滋傑羅寫作生涯一個獨特的時期，寫的是他的絕望。」然而，村上春樹卻特別為當代（日本）讀者編選這批所謂費滋傑羅後期的作品，並加以說明：「費滋傑羅是那種以日常生活經驗為核心，發揮想像，從中創作出小說的作家……」實際生活失去重心，意志消沉，當然會影響作品，但編譯此書的村上春樹更希望讀者看到的，是在遭遇多重困境中的費滋傑羅，如何努力不懈地嘗試，從不放棄用文字敘說更新的世界的那份執著。
Two dork-alicous tales from the hilarious Nikki Maxwell in one brilliant bind-up! In DEAR DORK, Nikki is enlisted to write the school agony aunt coloumn. But when her own life is a disaster zone, how
