Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

Xu Xu 徐訏 (1908-1980) was an influential Chinese writer who enjoyed tremendous popularity throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. After graduating from Peking University in 1931 he moved to Shanghai in 1933 to begin his literary career. He left for Paris to continue his studies in 1936 and returned to China during the war against Japan. He moved to Hong Kong in 1950, where in his later fiction he mostly explored the theme of nostalgia experienced by countless Chinese displaced during the civil war. Xu Xu's works were banned on the mainland from 1949 until the 1980s, but his work is now widely read in China and is a frequent source material for television and the stage. In Hong Kong Xu Xu edited several literary journals and taught Chinese literature at different colleges and universities, eventually chairing the Chinese Department at Hong Kong Baptist University until his death in 1980. Frederik H. Green is associate professor of Chinese at San Francisco State University. He is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the literature and culture of the Qing dynasty and the Republican Period, Sino-Japanese cultural relations, post-socialist Chinese cinema, and contemporary Chinese art. He holds a BA in Chinese Studies from Cambridge University and an MPhil and PhD in Chinese literature from Yale University. He currently resides in San Francisco. 

Contents


Acknowledgments


Xu Xu’s Literary Journey through Twentieth-Century China


A Note on the Translation


鬼戀
Ghost Love


猶太的彗星
The Jewish Comet


鳥語
Bird Talk


百靈樹
The All-Souls Tree


來高升路的一個女人
When Ah Heung Came to Gousing Road


A Chinese Romantic’s Journey through Time and Space: Xu Xu and Transnational Chinese Romanticism


References