Yu Dafu Research Articles

On the Bridge

Fiction in 20th century China has had a turbulent course marked by the brief or discontinuous careers of prominent authors. Some became famous, then wrote little new because the times had passed them by (Zeng Pu) or they seemed to lose interest (Yu Da-fu); they died of overwork (Lu Xun), were executed (Rou Shi) or compelled to stop by illness (Zhang Tian-yi). The profession was poorly paid and often politically dangerous. It was difficult, even with the determination to proceed in the face of enormous swift changes in China's social order, to feel that from one decade to the next one still understood and still had something to say.