Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

AUTHOR PAGE ON WIKIPEDIA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Xu Why should we care about Xu Xu? Xu Xu was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s-1950s. His literary career spans three distinct/important periods of twentieth-century China: prewar Shanghai, war-time China, and postwar Hong Kong. As a result, his fiction gives readers an intimate glimpse of Shanghai’s urban modernity and cosmopolitan flair of the 1930s, China’s war of resistance against Japan during the 1940s, and finally the reality of the cold war and of exile as experienced by countless Chinese who left China after 1949. In the 1960s and 1970s, many of Xu Xu’s works were turned into popular movies and TV series, and his oeuvre thus continued to shape cultural consumption in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. Chinese scholars place Xu Xu into the context of 20th C neo-romanticism and global literary modernity. As such, his work will be of interest to readers and scholars interested in the romantic revival in the 20th C. For details, see the new Wikipedia page on Xu Xu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Xu How significant a writer is Xu Xu in China, then and now? He was a bestselling author in the 1930s and 1940s all over China, and, after emigrating to Hong Kong in 1950, in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Xu Xu was a major influence on a younger generation of Chinese writers in post-war Hong Kong and Taiwan. He has been anthologized in the most authoritative literary anthologies in Hong Kong, and his works have remained in print in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and, since the 1980s, in China. Xu Xu’s work was unavailable to readers in China from 1949 until the 1980s. In the late 1980s, Xu Xu was enthusiastically embraced, because his liberal politics, his cosmopolitanism, and lyrical exoticism greatly appealed to readers and intellectuals who had experienced decades of political extremism and antagonism toward the West. is Xu Xu taught in US universities? Xu Xu is mentioned in many introductory text books that cover the Republican Period (e.g. Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film), and with the publication of Rosenmeier’s study Xu Xu will certainly become even more prominent on Chinese literature syllabi. Xu Xu is regularly taught in graduate seminars at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, the University of San Francisco, the University of Virginia, and UCLA. However, the lack of an English translation of some of his most representative works in English to date has made it practically impossible to teach him in depth in undergraduate survey courses or graduate courses in Comp Lit. What about Xu Xu's writing will appeal to contemporary readers? What themes does he take up that might resonate with people today? His writing is very accessible and gives an insight into some of the most interesting and turbulent periods in modern Chinese history (1930s Shanghai, the war-years, postwar Hong Kong). His stories are fun to read, and, unlike much Chinese fiction of that period, address universal themes (espionage, alienation, love, friendship). In other words: one does not need a ton of insight knowledge of Chinese history or society to appreciate them. At the same time, some of his works (especially "Bird Talk" and "The All-Souls Tree") explore existentialist themes and the challenges caused by modernity or by exile that will resonate with people even today. Intercultural romance ("The Jewish Comet") and loyalty and friendship ("When Ah hang Came to Gousing Rd") likewise are themes with a universal and timeless appeal. Xu Xu is one of the few Chinese writers of the 20th C who displayed in his fiction an interest in Judaism and who offers a glimpse of the life of the Jewish community in pre-war Shanghai. Is Xu Xu “banned” in mainland China? He was banned from 1949 until the mid-1980s. Today, his complete works are again widel