It doesn t do justice to not state a brief history of eileen chang.

Eileen chang love in a fallen city background. The rich and powerful families of the land are suffering as their wealth and power diminishes. The story focuses about a love story that triumphed during the wartime hong kong. It was suggested by an academic scholar nicole huang that eileen chang s most important literary legacy from the 1940s is her construction of an. Love in a fallen city is a 1943 chinese language novel by eileen chang.

It is also the first collection in english of the work of eileen chang whom ang lee has called the fallen angel of chinese literature the book is an original title in the nyrb classics series. In the collection of stories love in a fallen city by eileen chang chang writes about the intricacies of life as the chinese customs attempt to keep time with the rapidly changing culture in china. In the first piece of sustained criticism devoted to chang s fiction fu lei a fellow shanghailander and famed translator of french literature praised the young writer s handling of narrative technique in stories such as the golden cangue and love in a fallen city both published in 1943 the year before fu s essay before proceeding to criticise the narrowness and triviality of chang s overriding concern with the domestic and the amorous. The whole city of shanghai had dozed off and dreamed an unreasonable dream wartime politics are openly translated into sexual politics in several of chang s major stories.

• Barbara Woodhouse Young Pics