{"product_id":"mirage-isbn-9789629966621","title":"Mirage","description":"First published anonymously in 1804—its author remains unknown—\u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e is set in Guangzhou (Canton), some decades before the city was  overwhelmed by the opium trade and the Opium War. Su Jishi, the  adolescent son of the head of the Chinese traders’ association, the men  licensed to deal with foreign merchants in the port, is suddenly  burdened with responsibility for his powerful family after his father’s  unexpected death. More interested in sex than money, Su Jishi learns to  navigate between pleasure and commerce, as rebellions erupt just outside  the city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the crossroads of two of the greatest Chinese books—the aristocratic coming-of-age novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Story of the Stone\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Dream of the Red Chamber\u003c\/i\u003e) and the military epic \u003ci\u003eOutlaws of the Marsh\u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e is panorama of libertines and concubines, lecherous monks and celibate  soldiers, corrupt officials and drunken scholars. As entertaining as a  bestseller, it is a hectic recreation of vanished mores and customs, and  the life of a Chinese city as it was beginning to discover—and deal  with—the rest of the world.\"Patrick Hanan’s most recently published translation, \u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e is historically significant for two  reasons. First, the 1804 novel is the earliest to describe the lives of  Guangdong merchants who traded with the West. Second, it is the last  translation completed by Patrick Hanan, the foremost scholarly authority  on premodern Chinese short fiction in the Western world and a prolific  translator of that same fiction, before his death in 2014. In both his  translation and his scholarship, Hanan was relentlessly attentive to the  elegant touches that animated works of fiction like \u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e, to works that took seriously the craft of entertainment and the lives and values of ordinary people.\" —Dylan Suher, \u003ci\u003eAsymptote\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The anonymous author of \u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e fuses the tropes of its literary forebears to create a compelling portrait of a society on the cusp of a destabilising modernity, with the structures—bureaucratic, military and social—which have held the Empire in place becoming corrupted and weakened by avarice and moral decrepitude….the late Harvard scholar Patrick Hanan has rendered the novel into a clear, vernacular English, and has avoided weighing the edition down with lengthy footnotes or commentaries; this is very much a translation to be read and enjoyed.” —\u003ci\u003eAsian Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eMirage\u003c\/i\u003e is a key work from the critical period of the early nineteenth century. It resembles a modern-day R-rated movie, touching on serious issues but containing scenes of explicit sexual pleasure and violent conflict.”—Keith McMahon\u003cb\u003ePatrick Hanan \u003c\/b\u003e(1927–2014) was Victor S. Thomas Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. He was the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Chinese Short Story\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Chinese Vernacular Story\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Invention of Li Yu\u003c\/i\u003e, and the translator of many works of late imperial Chinese fiction, including \u003ci\u003eThe Sea of Regret \u003c\/i\u003eand the cult classic, \u003ci\u003eThe Carnal Prayer Mat\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303367889125,"sku":"NP9789629966621","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9789629966621.jpg?v=1767732773","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/mirage-isbn-9789629966621","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}