EILEEN Chang was born in 1920 into a China wracked with instability. The new Republic of China, under the nationalist leadership of Sun Yat-sen, had just deposed the last Confucian dynasty in 1911. But while the Qing dynasty had ruled for nearly three hundred years (and Confucian-style governments for two millennia), the Republican government was to be deposed in less than forty years--pushed off the mainland, onto the island of Taiwan, by the Communist revolution. In 1920,however, the chief threat to the fledgling Republic came not from the Communists but from regional warlords who resisted the authority of the central government. Starting in the late I93os, there was also the steady encroachment of the invading Japanese.

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The works in this volume show Eileen Chang's brilliance in the short-story form.Through fascinating evocations of the great cities of Hong Kong and Shanghai in the ]930s and ]940s, she provides revealing glimpses of Chinese life - both traditional and modern - as she depicts a world of concubines and opium addicts, fast living and family affairs.

In the novella Love in a Fallen City, an unlikely couple find true romance as bombs fall on Hong Kong during the Second World War. And in other tales, a schoolgirl is lured into the decadent world of her disreputable aunt, an awkward student's overpowering wish for a different father has disastrous consequences, and a successful businessman reflects on the women he has loved and lost.

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE TO THE SECOND PRINTING OF ROMANCES

ALOESWOOD INCENSE: THE FIRST BRAZIER

JASMINE TEA

LOVE IN A FALLEN CITY

THE GOLDEN CANGUE

SEALED OFF

RED ROSE, WHITE ROSE

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