Proust in Modern China: A Century of Translation, Politics, and Taste
How a French Masterpiece Became a Chinese Literary Institution

About this book:

How does a labyrinthine French masterpiece about memory and aristocratic salons become a cornerstone of modern Chinese literary culture? *Proust in Modern China* tells the riveting, century-long story of *In Search of Lost Time*’s migration across a vast cultural divide—from fragmented, second-hand mentions in 1920s journals to best-selling translations and viral online discourse today. It is a biography of a book in exile, revealing how generations of Chinese translators wrestled with Proust’s "untranslatable" prose, reimagining his intricate sentences for a readership navigating revolution, war, and radical social upheaval.

This groundbreaking study exposes the surprising political life of a supposedly apolitical novel. You will witness *In Search of Lost Time* survive Nationalist censorship, endure ideological purges in the early PRC, and weather the total silence of the Cultural Revolution—only to re-emerge as a symbol of intellectual freedom and aesthetic sophistication in the reform era. Through meticulous archival research and interviews with key figures, the book maps how shifting political winds dictated not just *if* Proust could be read, but *how* he was interpreted, turning his exploration of subjective time into a battleground for Chinese literary modernity.

More than a reception history, this is a chronicle of cultural remaking. From the May Fourth modernists who hailed Proust as a weapon against tradition, to contemporary scholars and digital communities reclaiming him for a globalized China, the book traces how Chinese writers, critics, and readers did not merely receive Proust—they naturalized him. *Proust in Modern China* offers a spellbinding case study in the power of translation to bridge worlds, proving that a masterpiece truly lives only when it is perpetually reborn in the imagination of new readers.