The Old Capital

Name: The Old Capital
ISBN: 9787510875069

朱天心Jiuzhou Press · ChinaDec 2021

4.2

Word count: 120K words
Chapters: 10
ISBN: 9787510875069

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Summary

“O teeming sea, O beautiful isle—are your memories worth nothing?” Kyoto is poetry, Taipei is fiction; the writer moves between the two cities, searching for a place where spirit and memory can rest: on one side, the timeless old capital of Kawabata Yasunari's pages, bearing memory; on the other, her hometown Taipei, steadily erasing history and memory. Armed with a map from the Japanese colonial period, the narrator wanders the streets and alleys of fin-de-siècle Taipei, finding only ruins and ruptures left by urban change and construction; the traces of memory are vanishing, and both the collective and the individual suffer from historical amnesia. The Old Capital is Chu T'ien-hsin's island fable: five novellas and short stories in which, like the “Angelus Novus” in Klee's painting as read by Benjamin, she gazes at the ruins of history, halts time, and wakes the dead—only to be blown step by step into the future by the storm of the age. Selected by Asia Weekly as one of the “100 Best Chinese-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century,” this book is a classic of contemporary Sinophone literature.

Editor's review

The Old Capital is Chu T'ien-hsin's island fable, written in counterpoint between Taipei and Kyoto and collecting five novellas and short stories. Armed with a map from the Japanese colonial period, the narrator wanders the streets and alleys of fin-de-siècle Taipei, finding only the ruins and ruptures left by urban change and construction; the traces of memory are vanishing, and both individuals and the collective seem stricken with historical amnesia. Chu T'ien-hsin's method does not rely on plot momentum; she builds tension through juxtaposition, looking back, and gazing: Kyoto bears the timeless memory of an old capital, while Taipei keeps erasing its history, the two mirroring each other and forcing readers to ask whether memory counts for anything at all. Selected by Asia Weekly as one of the “100 Best Chinese-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century,” this book rewards slow reading by anyone interested in urban writing, historical memory, and classics of Sinophone literature, allowing them to feel, between the two cities, the melancholy of being blown toward the future by the storm of the age.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who love classics of Sinophone literature and novellas and short stories
Those concerned with urban memory and the erasure of history
Readers interested in writing that counterpoints Taipei and Kyoto
Literary lovers willing to read slowly and savor narrative structure

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced storytelling
Those with little interest in urban history and memory
Readers who prefer light entertainment and dislike literary experimentation

Reading tips

Read the title piece “The Old Capital” first, then the other four stories, to see how the Taipei–Kyoto counterpoint runs through the whole book.
As you read, note the images of maps, ruins, and ruptures; they link the themes of memory and forgetting.
You can read slowly alongside the background of Taipei's urban development; there is no need to finish in one sitting—leave room to savor it.

About the publisher

Jiuzhou Press China · Founded in 1993

Jiuzhou Press is a comprehensive publisher with humanities, social sciences, and classic works as important publishing directions, maintaining a sustained focus on philosophy, history, literature, and social culture. Its catalogue includes works by modern literary masters such as Xiao Hong and Lu Xun, as well as intellectual and art history works by Xu Fuguan, including A History of Chinese Theories of Human Nature: Pre-Qin Volume, A History of Han Thought, and The Spirit of Chinese Art: A Study of Shitao. It also translates and introduces overseas academic works such as Peter H. Wilson's The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy and Peter Suber's The Case of the Speluncean Explorers, and covers cross-cultural exchange themes such as From Dunhuang to Samarkand. Its publishing character lies in balancing the organization of original texts with academic translation, forming relatively stable author and title resources in categories including philosophy, military affairs, theory, and social culture. More complete information about the press's publishing history and plans is limited in publicly available sources; this summary is based only on the titles in the catalogue.

版权信息
代序
导读刻舟求剑人
威尼斯之死
拉曼查志士
第凡内早餐
匈牙利之水
古都
附录一老灵魂前世今生
附录二《古都》·废墟·桃花源外

FAQ

Is The Old Capital a novel or a short-story collection?

Sources indicate that The Old Capital collects five novellas and short stories, with the title piece “The Old Capital” as one of them. The book is threaded with the Taipei–Kyoto counterpoint, and the stories share the themes of urban memory and historical amnesia, so it is best read as an internally connected collection of novellas and short stories.

Can I read it without having been to Taipei or Kyoto?

Yes. The Taipei–Kyoto counterpoint certainly involves specific urban spaces, but its core is the universal question of memory and historical amnesia. Even without knowing the streets of either city, readers can follow the narrator's backward gaze and consider how a hometown is erased by development and time, and where individual memory stands in all this.

Why is this book called a classic?

The sources note that the book was selected by Asia Weekly as one of the “100 Best Chinese-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century” and is a classic of contemporary Sinophone literature. That selection shows it is recognized in Sinophone literary circles, but its specific literary value still needs to be felt by readers through the two-city narrative and the theme of memory.

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About the author

朱天心 Author

Zhu Tianxin is an important writer in the Chinese-language literary world. Public information about her is limited, and details such as her dates of birth and death, nationality, and education are not clearly recorded in the available sources. Her eight works in the collection span social fiction, prose, and youth literature, with representative titles including The Hunters, Songs of Pounding Soil, That Cat, That Person, That City, In Remembrance of My Village Brothers, The Ancient Capital, A Thirty-Three-Year Dream, The Wanderer, and Love in the Season of Early Summer Lotuses. These works show her writing moving across youthful memory, city life, animal observation, and military dependents' village experience, with delicate and lyrical prose that often links personal recollection to broader historical change. She attends closely to the small textures of everyday life and writes movingly about the ties between people and places, and between people and animals. Her work has had a notable influence on Taiwanese literature and Chinese-language writing.