MCLC BOOK REVIEWS


This page contains links to book reviews published online by the journal Modern Chinese Literature and Culture and the MCLC Resource Center. As of fall 2003, all book reviews are published online and no longer appear in print format in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. Reviews are solicited by the MCLC Book Review Editors: Yomi Braester (film/media studies); Nicholas Kaldis (literature studies); and Michael Berry (translations). To propose a book for review, contact the appropriate editor. Two copies of the book should be sent to the book review editor. Contact information for the editors and information on book review format can be found on the MCLC Submissions page. In addition to being published online, book reviews are disseminated on the MCLC LIST.
2009

Wolf Totem, by Jiang Rong; trs by Howard Goldblatt. Reviewed by Howard Y. F. Choy (Wittenberg University)

Red-light Novels of the Late Qing, by Chloe F. Starr. Reviewed by John Christopher Hamm (University of Washingtion)

China's Second World of Poetry: The Sichuan Avant-garde, 1982-1992, by Michael Day. Reviewed by Heather Inwood (The Ohio State University)

Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production, by Alexander Des Forges. Reviewed by Chris Berry (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Origins of the Chinese Avant-Garde: The Modern Woodcut Movement, by Xiaobing Tang. Reviewed by James Flath (Western Ontario University)

New Perspectives on Contemporary Chinese Poetry, edited by Christopher Lupke. Reviewed by Maghiel van Crevel (Leiden University)

The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture, by Richard Curt Kraus. Reviewed by Matthew D. Johnson (University of Oxford)


2008

Shanghai and the Edges of Empire, by Meng Yue. Reviewed by Alexander Des Forges (University of Massachusetts-Boston)

A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature, by Hong Zicheng. Tr. by Michael M. Day. Reviewed by Edward Gunn (Cornell University)

Fragmentary Modernism: Amie Parry and Jiayan Mi on Modernism in Chinese Poetry and Beyond. Reviewed by Paul Manfredi (Pacific Lutheran University)

Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific, by Shu-mei Shih. Reviewed by Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu (University of California, Davis).


2007

Resisting Manchukuo: Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese Occupation, by Norman Smith. Reviewed by Heng hsing Liu (National Chi Nan University)

Wang in Love and Bondage: Three Novellas by Wang Xiaobo, trs. by Hongling Zhang and Jason Sommer. Reviewed by Wendy Larson (University of Oregon)

Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History, ed. by David Der-Wei Wang and Carlos Rojas. Reviewed by Pei-Yin Lin (Cambridge University)

Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space, by Wu Hung. Reviewed by Robin Visser (University of North Carolina)

Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island, by Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis. Reviewed by James Tweedie (University of Washington)

Buiding a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937, by Laikwan Pang. Reviewed by Shaoyi Sun (Shanghai University)

Zhou Mengdie's Poetry of Consciousness, by Lloyd Haft. Reviewed by Christopher Lupke (Washington State University)

Cultural Control and Globalization in Asia: Copyright, Piracy, and Cinema. By Laikwan Pang. Reviewed by Shujen Wang (Emerson College)

Sherlock in Shanghai: Stories of Crime and Detection by Cheng Xiaoqing. Tr. by Timothy C. Wong. Reviewed by Alexander Des Forges (University of Massachusetts--Boston)

Republican Beijing: The City and Its Histories, by Madeleine Yue Dong. Reviewed by Timothy B. Weston (University of Colorado)

I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, by Zhu Wen; tr. by Julia Lovell. Reviewed by Jason McGrath (University of Minnesota)

"From Wenhua to Wenhua Chanye: A Review of Culture in the Contemporary PRC," by Hai Ren (University of Arizona).

Significant Other: Staging the American in China, by Claire Conceison. Reviewed by Siyuan Liu.

"Eileen Chang's Poetics of the Social: Review of Love in a Fallen City." Tr. by Karen Kingsbury. Reviewed by Haiyan Lee (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Selected Essays of Zhou Zuoren. Tr. by David E. Pollard. Reviewed by Georges Bê Duc (INALCO, Paris)

Orphan of Asia, by Wu Zhuoliu. Tr. by Ioannis Mentzas. Reviewed by Leo Ching (Duke University)

"Between Discourse and Social Reality: The Early Chinese Press in Recent Publications: Review Essay," by Barbara Mittler (University of Heidelberg). Reviews of Xiaoqing Ye, The Dianshizhai Pictorial: Shanghai Urban Life, 1884-1898 (2003); Andrea Janku, Nur leere Reden. Politischer Diskurs und die Shanghaier Press im China des späten 19. Jahrhunderts (2003); and Natascha Vittinghoff, Die Anfänge des Journalismus in China (1860-1911) (2002).


2006

Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China, by Theodore Huters. Reviewed by Bonnie S. McDougall (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and China's Moral Voice, by Jerome Silbergeld. Reviewed by Robert Chi (State University of New York at Stony Brook)

Narrating China: Jia Pingwa and His Fictional World, by Yiyan Wang. Reviewed by Robin Visser (University of North Carolina).

Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China's Fifth Generation, by Ni Zhen. Tr. by Chris Berry. Reviewed by Michael Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara)

My Life as Emperor, by Su Tong. Tr. by Howard Goldblatt. Reviewed by Rong Cai (Emory University)

War Trash: A Novel, by Ha Jin. Reviewed by Timothy C. Wong (Arizona State University)

The Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China, by David Der-wei Wang. Reviewed by C. D. Alison Bailey (University of British Columbia)

The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp in Contemporary Fiction and Reportage, by Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. Reviewed by Maghiel van Crevel (Leiden University)

Retribution: The Jiling Chronicles, by Li Yung-p'ing. Tr. by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. Columbia University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Lingchei Letty Chen (Washington University)

The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism, by Tani E. Barlow. Duke Univesity Press, 2004. Reviewed by Megan M. Ferry (Union College)

One China, Many Paths, edited by Chaohua Wang. Verso, 2003. Reviewed by Ban Wang (Rutgers University)

Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel, by John Christopher Hamm. University of Hawaii Press, 2005. Reviewed by Paul B. Foster (Georgia Institute of Technology)

The Invention of a Discourse: Women's Poetry from Contemporary China, by Jeanne Hong Zhang. CNWS Publications, 2004. Reviewed by Paul Manfredi (Pacific Lutheran University)


2005

Projecting a Nation: Chinese National Cinema Before 1949, by Jubin Hu. Hong Kong University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Zhen Zhang (New York University)

Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time, by Wimal Dissanayake. Hong Kong University Press, 2003. Reviewed by John Christopher Hamm (University of Washington)

A Bilingual Edition of Poetry out of Communist China, by Huang Xiang. Tr. by Andrew Emerson. Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. Reviewed by Dian Li (University of Arizona)

Big Breasts and Wide Hips, by Mo Yan. Tr. by Howard Goldblatt. Arcade Publishing, 2004. Reviewed by Kenny Ng (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

Stone Turtle, by Mai Mang. Tr. by Mai Mang. Godavaya, 2005. Reviewed by Paul Manfredi (Pacific Lutheran University)

Red Poppies: A Novel of Tibet, by Alai, Tr. by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. Houghton Miflin, 2002. Reviewed by Gang Yue (University of North Carolina)

Figments of the Supernatural, by Chi Zijian. Tr. by Simon Patton. James Joyce Press, 2004. Reviewed by Wang Ping (University of New South Wales)

The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Rey Chow. Columbia University Press, 2002. Reviewed by Sean Metzger (Duke University)

The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing, by Anne-Marie Broudehoux. Routledge Press, 2004. Reviewed by Daniel Benjamin Abramson (University of Washington)

"Good-bye Mr. Nixon: A Review of A Private Life," by Chen Ran. Tr. by John Howard-Gibbon. Columbia University Press, 2004. Reviewed by Larissa Heinrich (University of Michigan)

Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua, by Dai Jinhua. Eds. Jing Wang and Tani E. Barlow. Verso, 2002. Reviewed by Megan Ferry (Union College)

Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in Transcultural Asia. Ed. Jenny Kwok Wah Lau. Temple University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Joelle Collier (College of Santa Fe)

Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China, by Andrew D. Morris. University of California Press, 2004. Review by Denise Gimpel (University of Denmark)

Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876-1937, by Christopher A. Reed. University of British Columbia Press, 2004. Reviewed by Rudolf Wagner (University of Heidelberg) [Response to Wagner's review by Christopher A. Reed]


2004

Questions of Style: Literary Societies and Literary Journals in Modern China, 1911-1937, by Michel Hockx. Brill Academic Publishers, 2003. Reviewed by Edward M. Gunn (Cornell University)

Chinese Reportage: The Aesthetics of Historical Experience, by Charles Laughlin. Duke University Press, 2002. Reviewed by Susan Daruvala (Cambridge University).

Stories for Saturday: Twentieth-Century Chinese Popular Fiction, edited and translated by Timothy C. Wong. University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Reviewed by John Christopher Hamm (University of Washington).

The Chinese Postmodern: Trauma and Irony in Chinese Avant-Garde Fiction, by Xiaobin Yang. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. Reviewed by Wendy Larson (University of Oregon).

China's New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender and Politics, 1978-1997, by Nimrod Baranovitch. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Reviewed by Barbara Mittler (University of Heidelberg).

Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China, by Xiaomei Chen. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Reviewed by Ruru Li (University of Leeds).

The True Story of Lu Xun, by David E. Pollard. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002. Reviewed by Nick Kaldis (Binghamton University).

The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature, edited by Joshua Mostow; associate editors Kirk A. Denton, Bruce Fulton, Sharalyn Orbaugh. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Margaret Hillenbrand (SOAS, University of London).

To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, by Yua Hua. To Live. Tr. by Michael Berry (New York: Anchor Books, 2003); Chronicle of a Blood Merchant. Tr. Andrew F. Jonese (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004). Reviewed by Richard King (University of Victoria).

Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama, edited by Xiaomei Chen. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003. Reviewed by John Yu Zou (Bates College).

The Chinese Essay, edited and translated by David E. Pollard. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Reviewed by Charles Laughlin (Yale University).