子夜

by Mao Dun

With the semi-feudal and semi-colonial old Shanghai from May to June of 1930 as the background, this book depicts figures of all walks of life including merchants, soldiers, intellectuals and social butterflies, old fogies, workers and so on, showing the broad picture of social life in old China in the 1930s. In the harsh situation of warlord dogfights and strikes of workers, although Wu Sunfu tries to revitalize national industry, speed up to oppress the working people and vigorously speculate from government bonds, ultimately he suffers a crushing defeat and completely goes bankrupt due to the powerful economic containment of his opponent Zhao Botao. 《子夜（上下）》以1930年5至6月间半封建、半殖民地的旧上海为背景，刻画了包括商人、军人、知识青年、交际花、遗老、工人等各阶层人物，展示了20世纪30年代旧中国社会生活的广阔画卷。在军阀混战、工人罢工的恶劣形势下，吴荪甫虽然竭力振兴民族工业，加紧压迫工人，大搞公债投机，但在对手赵伯韬强大的经济牵制下，最终一败涂地，彻底破产。

443 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2016

About the author

Mao Dun (4 July 1896 – 27 March 1981) was the pen name of Shen Dehong (Shen Yanbing), a 20th-century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and the Minister of Culture of People's Republic of China (1949–65). He is one of the most celebrated left-wing realist novelists of modern China. His most famous works are Ziye, a novel depicting life in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and Spring Silkworms. He also wrote many short stories.

He adopted "Mao Dun" (Chinese: 矛盾), meaning "contradiction", as his pen name to express the tension in the conflicting revolutionary ideology in China in the unstable 1920s. His friend Ye Shengtao changed the first character from 矛 to 茅, which literally means "thatch".

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Qing Wang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mao Dun wrote two epilogues for this book: one in 1932, when the book was ready for publication, and the other in 1977, at the publisher's request.

The first one is very brief, explaining the grand plan and the reason it was abandoned (health condition). The second one is more interesting. The publisher asked about the intention (or motive). Mao Dun explains that the intention is related to the debate over the nature of contemporary China. At that time, there were three arguments: one in favor of Marxism, one of Trotskyism, and the third for a European-American style bourgeois regime. Mao Dun says the book criticizes the last two harshly through the comprador bourgeoisie representatives.

It's a pity that Mao Dun couldn't revise the book to fulfill his original plan. Nor was it possible for him to write about the unspeakable