Overview
- Authors:
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Paul Bevan
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China Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Presents the first English translation of 'The Adventures of Ma Suzhen', an exciting, all-action novel published in 1920s Shanghai
- Features an illuminating academic essay that contextualises the comic tale, and reveals its multiple lives as a stage play, film and novel
- Contributes to the growing interest in martial arts and ‘knight-errant’ novels worldwide, while feeding into the general reading public’s increasing demand for books in this genre in English translation
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Table of contents (4 chapters)
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Back Matter
Pages 129-131
About this book
The comic novel, The Adventures of Ma Suzhen, was written during a highpoint in the popularity of xia “knight-errant” fiction. It is an action-packed tale of a young woman who takes revenge for her brother, Ma Yongzhen, a gangster and performing strongman, who has been murdered by a rival gang in China’s most cosmopolitan city, Shanghai. After publication of the book in 1923, the character of Ma Suzhen appeared on stage, and subsequently in a film made by the Mingxing Film Company. The book version translated here, displays a delightful combination of the xia and popular“Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies” genres, with additional elements of Gong’an “court case” fiction. The translation is followed by an essay that explores the background to the legend of Ma Suzhen – a fictional figure, whose exhilarating escapades reflect some of the new possibilities and freedoms available to women following the founding of the Chinese Republic.
Reviews
“Seeing injustice, Ma Suzhen does her best to right it, in fairly dramatic fashion (often with a bit of a comic touch to it as well). … Bevan's supporting apparatus and especially his afterword-essay provide a good deal of information and context, making for a more interesting whole. … It's neat to see a piece of 1920s popular Chinese literature like this -- far too little is available in translation … .” (M.A.Orthofer, complete-review.com, March 9, 2022)
Authors and Affiliations
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China Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Paul Bevan
About the author
Paul Bevan is Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. From 2018 to 2020 he worked as Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting at the Ashmolean Museum. Paul has taught modern Chinese literature, history, and visual culture at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His primary research interests concern the impact of Western art and literature on China during the Republican Period (1912-1949), particularly with regard to periodicals and magazines. His research on artists George Grosz, Frans Masereel, and Miguel Covarrubias, all of whom worked for Vanity Fair, has resulted in extensive research on both Chinese and Western pictorial magazines. Paul’s first book A Modern Miscellany - Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmei’s Circle and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926-1938, Leiden: Brill, 2015, was hailed as “a major contribution to modern Chinese studies”; hissecond: “Intoxicating Shanghai”: Modern Art and Literature in Pictorial Magazines during Shanghai’s Jazz Age was published by Brill in April 2020.
