Transcultural Lyricism

In Transcultural Lyricism: Translation, Intertextuality, and the Rise of Emotion in Modern Chinese Love Fiction, 1899–1925, Jane Qian Liu examines the profound transformation of emotional expression in Chinese fiction between the years 1899 and 1925. While modern Chinese literature is known to have absorbed narrative modes of Western literatures, it also learned radically new ways to convey emotions.

Drawn from an interdisciplinary mixture of literary, cultural and translation studies, Jane Qian Liu brings fresh insights into the study of intercultural literary interpretation and influence. She convincingly proves that Chinese writer-translators in early twentieth century were able to find new channels and modes to express emotional content through new combinations of traditional Chinese and Western techniques.

Jane Qian Liu, DPhil (2014), University of Oxford, is lecturer in comparative literature at Beijing Normal University. She has published articles, book chapters and translations on Chinese and European literature, including "The Making of Transcultural Lyricism in Su Manshu’s Fiction Writing," in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (Fall 2016).