吉陵春秋

by Li Yongping

小说写的是不知神州何处的一个小镇——吉陵，镇上有一条烟花巷唤作万福巷。娼寮聚集中却有一家棺材铺子，女主人长笙素颜白衣，如污泥中的白莲，却不知那样清纯的美会变成一种诅咒。六月十九迎神夜，全镇人在巷口看迎神，泼皮孙四房起歹意乘机作恶，长笙被辱自尽，丈夫刘老实发狂杀了孙四房的相好和老婆，锒铛入狱。
后报载刘老实越狱，吉陵镇上便谣传他要回来复仇。长笙被辱当日谁人没有罪？风声鹤唳，人人疑神疑鬼，说是长笙的冤魂白昼作祟，复仇者坐在苦楝树下等人……
全书以“十二瓣观音莲”的方式，用十二个互相联系的篇章将这个中心场景补全和升华，将读者的心一直提着到最后都不得解。

Genres: Chinese Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1986

About the author

Li Yongping was born on April 7, 1947, in Kuching, located in Sarawak on the island of Borneo in Malaysia. He received his early education in Malaysia. In 1966, he published the short story “Son of Borneo,” which won the Borneo Literature Bureau Prize. After graduating from high school, he went to Taiwan and began studying at the National Taiwan University (NTU) in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Upon graduation, he worked as a teaching assistant at NTU and an editor of Chung-Wait Literary Monthly. In 1976, Li traveled to the United States to further his studies, enrolling in department of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany, and received a master's degree in 1978. That same year, he also went to Washington University in St. Louis to pursue a doctoral degree, and received his doctoral degree in 1982. He has taught at the National Sun Yat-sen University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Soochow University Department of English Language and Literature, and the National Dong Hwa University Graduate Institute of Creative Writing and English Literature.

(from http://web.mit.edu/ccw/li-yongping/bi...)

Reviews

[Graham Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure if a lot was lost in translation or cultural context would've added a bunch, but I didn't get much beyond shock factor from this?

[Citron Pineapple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, and interesting description of an imagined oriental village.