The Past and Present of East Shanghai
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Summary
The "Life Trilogy" consists of three volumes: East Shanghai: Past and Present, North Port Island: Past and Present, and One Man's Past and Present.
East Shanghai: Past and Present is a novel set against the sweeping changes and human dramas of Shanghai, the international metropolis, around 1949. With great delicacy, the author depicts the beautiful memories of the protagonist's youth, his emotional journey in young adulthood, and his emotional reflections in old age.
The novel contains a strong Shanghai complex and offers profound, delicate depictions of old Shanghai's scenes and customs. In recent years, the author has been widely regarded by literary and cultural circles at home and abroad as a landmark figure of Shanghai-school literature.
Editor's review
The book takes time as the warp and space as the weft, offering both delicate depictions of the docks, factories, and lanes along the Huangpu River a century ago and critical reflections on the production of new spaces such as the contemporary Lujiazui financial district and the Expo site. The author pays special attention to uncovering ordinary people's everyday experience, cross-referencing oral history, archival documents, and material remains so that history is no longer a cold pile of sources but a warm trajectory of life. This "bottom-up" narrative perspective makes the book especially valuable among the many studies of Shanghai.
For contemporary readers, reading this book is not only a supplement to knowledge of Shanghai's urban geography but also a spatial decoding of China's modernization process. In today's rapid urbanization, the book reminds us to attend to the memories obscured and the discontinuities concealed in spatial change, offering profound historical reference for thinking about urban renewal, cultural preservation, and other real-world issues.
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers with a strong interest in Shanghai's urban history and culture
- Professionals in urban planning, architecture, and cultural heritage preservation
- Readers who enjoy understanding modern and contemporary Chinese history through a regional lens
- Residents of eastern Shanghai who want to understand the historical context of their own communities
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking light, entertaining reading
- Beginners seeking a systematic, comprehensive general history of Shanghai
Reading tips
- Read alongside old maps of Shanghai or contemporary satellite imagery to build an intuitive sense of spatial change
- Focus on the chapters on industrial heritage transformation and community memory, and reflect on cultural continuity in urbanization
- Note the specific places mentioned in the book and visit them if possible, experiencing the dialogue between text and site
About the publisher
Culture and Art Publishing House focuses on culture and art publishing. Its library holdings comprise 19 titles, covering categories such as essays and miscellaneous works, historical fiction, foreign literature, social fiction, and time-travel and alternate-world fiction. Representative books include Jian Zhen's "Only Because I Am in This Mountain," Cai Dongfan's "Romance of Song History" and "Romance of Later Han History," Thomas Hardy's "Hardy's Love Stories," as well as "Sea Sprite," "Chaos of Empresses and Concubines," "Official Career," and "Noise." Its author resources include Jian Zhen, Cai Dongfan, Fan Ka, and Thomas Hardy, along with translators such as Liu Rongyue and Jiang Jiansong. Judging from the books held, the publisher's output spans literary creation, historical romance, and translated foreign literature, and also touches on genre fiction. As the available data is limited, a full account of its publishing directions and features awaits further confirmation from public sources.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 楔子
- 东上海的前世今生
- 之一
- 之二
- 之三
- 之四
- 之五
- 之六
- 之七
- 之八
- 之九
- 之十
- 之十一
- 之十二
- 之十三
- 之十四
- 之十五
- 之十六
- 之十七
- 之十八
- 之十九
- 之二十
- 之二十一
- 之二十二
- 之二十三
- 之二十四
- 之二十五
- 之二十六
- 之二十七
- 之二十八
- 之二十九
- 之三十（梦中遇母——代后记）
- 附录一 “前世”还是“今生”？（Curiosity：Pre Or Post Life？）
- 附录二 生命的意义（The Meaningfulness of a True Life）
- 附录三 孤独的价值（The Value of Solitude）
FAQ
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About the author
Public information about Wu Zheng is limited, and basic details such as his nationality and dates of birth and death cannot be confirmed. Judging from the ten works held in the collection, his writing spans several genres: there are works with narrative tension and imaginative flavor, such as One Day Reborn and The Time Keeper, as well as pieces leaning toward personal essays and urban writing, such as Three Volumes of a Floating Life, Love Lost in Two Cities, Shanghai People, and Rear Window. The Abyss and Half a Long Night are closer in spirit to social novels and classic works, while volumes such as Three Volumes of a Floating Life also touch on modern poetry. Overall, Wu Zheng moves between urban experience and personal emotion, with a delicate style and subjects that shift between realistic portrayal and legendary narrative, which is why his work is classified under foreign literature, essays and miscellany, and social fiction. Owing to the scarcity of biographical material, his creative background and literary lineage are difficult to describe in detail; readers may chiefly come to know his writing through the works listed above.
