Pai Hsien-yung is among the most important writers in contemporary Chinese and world literature. His masterpiece Taipei People is a classic of Taiwanese modernism; with an intensity of vision comparable to James Joyce’s Dubliners, it follows the individual struggles of the people of Taipei, with a mix of compassion, nostalgia, mourning, and tenacious clarity.
Fifty years after its publication, the collection continues to move readers around the world. Stories from this collection have been translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean.
About the Author:
Pai Hsien-Yung is an internationally acclaimed author and the founder of Modern Literature magazine. He is generally considered among the greatest living stylists of Chinese fiction and prose. His publications include the collections of short stories Lonely Seventeen, Taipei People, and The New Yorker; the collection of prose writing Suddenly the Past; and the novel Crystal Boys. Pai became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965, and retired in 1994. In recent years he has devoted his energy to the promotion of Chinese Kun opera to the world. He is the general producer and artistic director of the opera Peony Pavilion, which has toured China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S.