Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist – China book tour, March 2014

Andrew Field’s Mu Shiying: China’s Lost Modernist is the third book (see Anne Witchard’s Lao She in London and Lindsey Shen’s Knowledge is Pleasure: Florence Ayscough in Shanghai were books 1 & 2) is now available for pre-order on Amazon and will be available in Asia this March. Andrew is also speaking at the Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou Literary Festivals – details of the book and the China tour below….

When the avant-garde writer Mu Shiying was assassinated in 1940, China lost one of its greatest modernist writers while Shanghai lost its most detailed chronicler of its demi-monde nightlife. As Andrew David Field argues, Mu Shiying advanced modern Chinese writing beyond the vernacular expression of May 4 giants Lu Xun and Lao She to even more starkly reveal the alienation of the cosmopolitan-capitalist city of Shanghai, trapped between the forces of civilization and barbarism. Each of these five short stories focuses on the author’s key obsessions: the pleasurable yet anxiety-ridden social and sexual relationships of the modern city and the decadent maelstrom of consumption and leisure in Shanghai epitomized by the dance hall and the nightclub. This study places his writings squarely within the framework of Shanghai’s social and cultural nightscapes.

SUN MARCH 9, 12 noon to 2 pm @ Bookworm Literary Festival, Beijing Bookworm

WED MARCH 12, 12 noon to 2 pm @ Shanghai Literary Festival, M on the Bund

SUN MARCH 16, 4 pm to 6 pm @ Bookworm Literary Festival, Suzhou Bookworm

THURS APRIL 3, 7 pm to 9 pm @ Wooden Box Cafe, Shanghai