Unwelcome Muse: Chinese Literature in Shanghai and Peking, 1937-1945

 The war period 1937-1949 has long been a neglected episode in the study of modern Chinese literature, and no aspect of it has suffered such complete indifference from scholars as the literature produced in the eastern seaboard cities occupied by the Japanese. For the other two areas into which China was divided during the War of Resistance, the Greater Rear Area under the Nationalist government in Chongqing and the Communist Party's Base Areas in North China, at least we have a number of draft histories written by Chinese scholars, and in recent years a scattering of articles in Western languages. It is a truism that history is unkind to losers, but here something more may be involved, namely revulsion against the quite exceptional brutality of the Japanese occupation and against those who chose to collaborate with it. A study of this particular chapter in modern Chinese literature has been long overdue, however, not just "be- cause it is there" but also for what it may be able to tell us about life under the Japanese occupation. And just as it may shed a different sort of light on the literary groups of the 1930's, so it may also be crucial for our understanding of the complex forces at work in the Chinese literary scene after 1949. Edward Gunn's book, the first full-length study of the subject in any language, is very much to be welcomed as a significant contribution to our knowledge of this period.

Topics discussed include the history of Japanese attempts to recruit Chinese writers for the Japanese propaganda effort; the decline of "May Fourth romanticism"; modern drama in Shanghai during the War; the familiar essays of Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang and others; and anti-romantic tendencies, based on English models like Somerset Maugham, of writers such as Zhang Ailing and Qian Zhongshu. A host of other authors are examined, including Tang Tao, Ke Ling, Su Qing, Xie Bingying, Shi Tuo (Lu Fen), Li Jianwu and A Ying.

288 Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 4 (1982) anese attempts to recruit Chinese writers for the Japanese propaganda effort; the decline of "May Fourth romanticism"; modern drama in Shanghai during the War; the familiar essays of Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang and others; and anti-romantic tendencies, based on English models like Somerset Maugham, of writers such as Zhang Ailing and Qian Zhongshu. A host of other authors are examined, including Tang Tao, Ke Ling, Su Qing, Xie Bingying, Shi Tuo (Lu Fen), Li Jianwu and A Ying.