Love in a fallen city - MXHDR BookWyrm

English language

Published Nov. 28, 2007

ISBN:: 978-1-59017-178-3

(1 review)

Love in a Fallen City (傾城之戀) is a 1943 Chinese-language novel by Eileen Chang. The translation is included in the New York Review of Books "Classics" series.The story focuses about a love story that triumphed during the wartime Hong Kong. Scholar Nicole Huang suggests that Eileen Chang's "most important literary legacy from the 1940s is her construction of an alternative narrative of war, one that contradicted the grand narratives of national salvation and revolution that dominated the wartime literary scene."

2 editions

Leaving_Marx@wyrmsign.org reviewed Love in a fallen city by Eileen Chang

Review of 'Love in a fallen city' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Interesting collection of short stories, focusing on Hong Kong before and during the Chinese revolution. My favourite parts of the book was seeing snippets of conservative family values and patriarchy presented from the perspective of upper class, and occasionally working class perspectives. Generally love stories or settling for less stories, some featuring incel like protagonists, others romance.

My favourite story was called sealed off which tells snippets of stories from a bunch of bus riders in the city during rush hour and a romance inspired by a traffic jam.

Definitely I imagine her writings have more depth and meaning to people who live in Hong Kong or the Diaspora, but as an outsider I found it an interesting read.