Representations of Cities in Republican-era Chinese Literature

The present study serves to explore the relationships between cities and literature by addressing the issues of space, time, and modernity in four works of fiction, Lao She''s Luotuo xiangzi (Camel Xiangzi, aka Rickshaw Boy), Mao Dun''s Ziye (Midnight), Ba Jin''s Han ye (Cold nights), and Zhang Ailing''s Qingcheng zhi lian (Love in a fallen city), and the four cities they depict, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, and Hong Kong, respectively. In this book I analyze the depictions of the cities in the four works, and situate them in their historical and geographical contexts to examine the characteristics of each city as represented in the novels. In studying urban space in the literary texts, I try to address issues of the imaginablity of cities to question how physical urban space intertwines with the characters'' perception and imagination about the cities and their own psychological activities.

Hao Zhou has just graduated from Ohio State University and received MA degree. He is interested in topics related to modern and contemporary Chinese literature, urban studies, cultural geography, and transportation technology. He received BA degrees from both Wuhan University and Huazhong University of Science and Technology.