A01=Shiamin Kwa
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Asia Center
Author_Shiamin Kwa
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DD
Category=DSB
Category=DSBD
Category=DSG
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9780674066854
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 07 Jan 2013
- Publisher: Harvard University, Asia Center
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
When it comes to really knowing a person, is what you see really what you get? Is it ever all you get? In this first critical study and annotated translation of the dramatic masterpiece Four Cries of a Gibbon by the late-Ming dynasty Chinese playwright Xu Wei, author Shiamin Kwa considers the ways that people encounter and understand each other in extraordinary circumstances. With its tales of crimes redressed in the next world and girls masquerading as men to achieve everlasting fame, Four Cries of a Gibbon complicated issues of self and identity when it appeared in the late Ming dynasty, paving the way for increasingly nuanced reflections on such questions in late Ming and early Qing fiction and drama. Beyond their historical context, Xu Wei’s influential plays serve as testimony to what Kwa argues are universal strategies found within drama. The heroes and heroines in these plays glide back and forth across the borders of life and death, of male and female, as they seek to articulate who they truly are. As the actors sort out these truths onstage, the members of the audience are invited to consider the truths that they live with offstage.
Shiamin Kwa is Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Bryn Mawr College.
