Culture, History, and the Reception of Tennessee Williams in China

This book is the first comprehensive study of the reception of Tennessee Williams in China, from rejection and/or misgivings to cautious curiosity and to full-throated acceptance, in the context of profound changes in China’s socioeconomic and cultural life and mores since the end of the Cultural Revolution. It fills a conspicuous gap in scholarship in the reception of one of the greatest American playwrights and joins book-length studies of Chinese reception of Shakespeare, Ibsen, O’Neill, Brecht, and other important Western playwrights whose works have been eagerly embraced and appropriated and have had catalytic impact on modern Chinese cultural life.

“Tennessee Williams stands alongside Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller as the most influential American playwrights in China—Shouhua Qi tells us why in this thoroughly researched and engaging study that places Williams’ work in an entirely new context of China’s social and political shifts of the past half-century in terms of national ideology, ideas about sexuality, and reception of foreign literature.” (Claire Conceison, Quanta Professor of Chinese Culture and Professor of Theater Arts, MIT, author of Significant Other: Staging the American in China)

“Shouhua Qi’s persuasive and readable study discovers important intersections of reception, adaptation, and craft. A playwright who has seemed at times definitionally and perhaps oppressively American thus assumes a newfound breadth of meaning and appeal.” (Alexander Pettit, Professor of English, University of North Texas, Editor Eugene O’Neill Review)

"Shouhua Qi's valuable contribution to the field of Williams scholarship explores the reception of Williams' plays in China through a rare bilingual/bicultural lens that adds to our understanding of the complexities involved in adapting art across cultural divides." (Annette J. Saddik, Distinguished Professor of Theatre and Literature, City University of New York)

Shouhua Qi is Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yangzhou University, China and Professor of English at Western Connecticut State University, USA. Qi’s research has been published in journals such as The Cambridge Quarterly, Comparative Drama, Classical Receptions Journal, Theatre Research International, The Ibsen Review, The Eugene O’Neill Review, and The Hardy Review. Among the more than 20 books Qi has published, including fiction, nonfiction, and literary translation, are Adapting Western Classics for the Chinese Stage (Routledge, 2018), The Brontë Sisters in Other Wor(l)ds (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Western Literature in China and the Translation of a Nation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).