Mirage

"An obscure gem of Chinese vernacular fiction rendered in impeccable English by a master-translator and a renowned scholar of Chinese literature. It offers a rare glimpse into gentry life in Canton on the eve of the Opium War: the vivid boudoir scenes filled with elaborate and often juicy details are etched against a sweeping fresco of an empire torn with rebellion and unrest--as if the hero of the Dream of the Red Chamber were thrust into the foreground of modern Chinese history. Reading this unique specimen Chinese bildungsroman takes some patience but also offers much pleasure and intellectual reward." --Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

"Patrick Hanan is the leading scholar and translator of late imperial and early Chiense fiction. In Mirage, through his rendition, and obscure early nineteenth century novel is finally garnering well-deserved attention. The novel captures the morals and manners, expectations and agitations of a Chinese society on the eve of entering the modern age. Hanan's translation is exquisite and most lively--a masterpiece in its own right." --David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

"Mirage is a key work from the critical period of the early nineteenth century. It resembles a modern-day R-rated movie, touching on serious issues but containing scenes of explicit sexual pleasure and violent conflict. Its characters include the rapacious profligate and the lecherous monk, the benevolent libertine and his sublime wife and sexy cocubines, and the doomed wanton woman who in the end becomes a nun. This is another of Patrick Hanan translations, presenting us with a fine work that has long been ignored and that widens our reading horizons." --Keith McMahon, The University of Kansas