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Death in a Cornfield: and Other Stories from Contemporary Taiwan
The past decade has brought dramatic changes to more sophisticated industry, increased political freedoms, and greater challenges to traditional social relations. All the while, a new order has yet to be firmly established. Taiwan's writers have not ignored these transformations, and
have addressed their work to the new situation with wit and ingenuity.
The thirteen short stories collected here serve as witness to the changes that have gripped Taiwanese society. Whether exposing assumptions about the gulf between rural and urban islanders, examining the aftermath of the island's Cultural Revolution, sex roles, the newly rich, or disentangling
the effects of modernization, the author of each story presents the reader with a fully realized fiction that builds on and adds to our understanding of today's Taiwan.
Translated from the Chinese by the staff of the National Institute of Translation and Compilation, Taipei, these stories will appeal to all readers intrigued by the fictive portrait of a culture in transition.
have addressed their work to the new situation with wit and ingenuity.
The thirteen short stories collected here serve as witness to the changes that have gripped Taiwanese society. Whether exposing assumptions about the gulf between rural and urban islanders, examining the aftermath of the island's Cultural Revolution, sex roles, the newly rich, or disentangling
the effects of modernization, the author of each story presents the reader with a fully realized fiction that builds on and adds to our understanding of today's Taiwan.
Translated from the Chinese by the staff of the National Institute of Translation and Compilation, Taipei, these stories will appeal to all readers intrigued by the fictive portrait of a culture in transition.
254 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 1994
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 25, 2024
I liked these stories, but only one of them really gripped me (Night-time Frolics).
Rustic Quandry, the last story in the series, was strangely touching despite having essentially zero plot.
"Things inexperienced leave no traces on the tablets of the mind: an old man who never set foot out of his door in his life would not know what time in the morning the main gate opened and what time in the evening it closed in a city 500 miles away, but bitten by a swamp snake when young, the sight of a rope will make his heart skip a beat for years."
Rustic Quandry, the last story in the series, was strangely touching despite having essentially zero plot.
"Things inexperienced leave no traces on the tablets of the mind: an old man who never set foot out of his door in his life would not know what time in the morning the main gate opened and what time in the evening it closed in a city 500 miles away, but bitten by a swamp snake when young, the sight of a rope will make his heart skip a beat for years."
Displaying 1 of 1 review