{"product_id":"the-peach-blossom-fan-isbn-9781590178768","title":"The Peach Blossom Fan","description":"A tale of battling armies, political intrigue, star-crossed romance, and historical cataclysm, \u003ci\u003eThe Peach Blossom Fan\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the masterpieces of Chinese literature, a vast dramatic composition that combines the range and depth of a great novel with the swift intensity of film. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the mid-1640s, famine sweeps through China. The Ming dynasty, almost 300 years old, lurches to a bloody end. Peking falls to the Manchus, the emperor hangs himself, and Ming loyalists take refuge in the southern capital of Nanking. Two valiant generals seek to defend the city, but nothing can overcome the corruption, decadence, and factionalism of the court in exile. The newly installed emperor cares for nothing but theater, leaving practical matters to the insidious Ma Shih-ying. Ma’s crony Juan Ta-ch’eng is as unscrupulous an operator as he is sophisticated a poet. He diverts resources from the starving troops in order to stage a spectacular production of his latest play. History, however, has little time for make-believe, though the earnest members of the Revival Club, centered on the handsome young scholar Hou Fang-yü and his lover Fragrant Princess, struggle to discover a happy ending.“\u003ci\u003eThe Peach Blossom Fan\u003c\/i\u003e is replete with romance, conflicts between loyalty and treachery, a healthy measure of bawdy humor, punning, elegant poetry, moral issues, and popular philosophical currents....This is a lively, readable, and faithful translation of a major work of Chinese literature.” —Howard Goldblatt\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Many popular Chinese plays fail to qualify as literature, being no more than plain scripts for brilliant actors to display their virtuosity. \u003ci\u003eThe Peach Blossom Fan \u003c\/i\u003eappears to be a luminous exception, for it is a highly poetic chronicle play composed by a distinguished scholar, K’ung Shang-jen, who was born soon after the events he portrayed. As a vivid evocation of the downfall of the Ming dynasty, it deserves to be better known to students of Chinese literature and history.” —Harold Acton\u003cb\u003eK'ung Shang-jen\u003c\/b\u003e (1646–1718) was a sixty-fourth generation  descendant of Confucius and was raised in his ancestor’s hometown of  Qufu in Shandong province. A noted expert in music and Confucian rites,  he was chosen in 1684 to lecture to the visiting emperor Kangxi, who  later appointed him to the Imperial Academy in Beijing. \u003ci\u003eThe Peach Blossom Fan\u003c\/i\u003e was completed in 1699 and was performed to great acclaim in 1700. It  was not published, however, until 1708, a few years after K’ung had left  his post and returned home to Qufu.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJudith T. Zeitlin\u003c\/b\u003e is  the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in East Asian Languages and  Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Her most recent book is \u003ci\u003eThe Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eChen Shih-Hsiang\u003c\/b\u003e (1912–1971) was a professor of Chinese and comparative literature at  the University of California, Berkeley. Among his books are \u003ci\u003eThe Genesis of Poetic Time\u003c\/i\u003e and, with Harold Acton, \u003ci\u003eModern Chinese Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarold Acton\u003c\/b\u003e (1904–1994) was a prolific Anglo-Italian writer, poet, novelist, and  translator. He lived in China from 1932 to ’39, teaching English  literature at the University of Peking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCyril Birch\u003c\/b\u003e is a  translator and the Agassiz Professor of Chinese and Comparative  Literature emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300753068261,"sku":"NP9781590178768","price":25.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590178768.jpg?v=1767740895","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-peach-blossom-fan-isbn-9781590178768","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}