Short stories
Drowning
沉淪
Yu Dafu · 1921
Synopsis
A Chinese student in Japan, sensitive and melancholic, isolates himself from the Japanese as from his compatriots and seeks refuge in nature and books; he ends up settling in an isolated house, away from a provincial town. His desire, which he dares not admit, is mixed with shame at his nationality: he feels humiliated before young Japanese women, spies on his landlord's daughter at her bath and finally goes to a brothel in a coastal town.
Context
The collection was published on 15 October 1921 by Taidong, in Shanghai, and brings together three stories written in Japan, including the one that gives it its title. It is regarded as the first collection of stories of the new literature in the modern language and as one of the first Chinese psychological fictions. Its frankness about sexuality, linked by the hero to the humiliation of his country, caused a sensation, and critics read it as an autobiographical narrative. The title text appeared in English in a 1995 anthology, then as a volume in 2021.
Who it is for
Three short tales, to be read in order; the title story reads in one sitting and speaks of desire in crude terms.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the texts representative of the Romanticism of the May Fourth period for its frankness and subjectivity.