Da Zhong is the third novel in Pu Zi's Wangzhuang Trilogy and can also be read on its own as a volume in the Mountains Beyond Mountains novel series. Set in the fictional village of Wangzhuang in the mountains and coastal region of eastern Zhejiang, the novel opens in the early years of the People's Republic and carries through to the present, letting readers walk closely alongside more than sixty years of social change. The story revolves around three Wang families: one represented by Wang Deqing and his daughter Yingying, who carry on traditional Chinese virtues and refuse to be toyed with by fate through lives full of hardship, with Wang Deqing ultimately hoping to awaken concern for ecological protection and truth, goodness, and beauty through the destruction of his own life; one represented by Wang Dexun and Wang Yuejin, who set out to change the world with integrity and kindness but are picked apart one by one by human weakness; and one represented by Wang Chuanben and his son Wang Dexing, who wallow in the pleasure of human degradation. The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the joint public-private ownership campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the backyard steel campaign, and the environmental and spiritual crises of the present all leave their marks on the novel. Continuing in a magical-realist vein and centering on fire as its core image, the author links the towering steelmaking furnaces to human desire, destruction, and redemption, capturing the tough, fierce yet quietly stoic will to live of the people of eastern Zhejiang and leaving readers with a question in the spirit of the Heavenly Questions: as history spirals onward, what sacrifices must ordinary people make?
Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House is a Chinese publisher specializing in literary publishing. Judging from the 808 titles in the database, its publishing areas cover world classics, foreign literature, social novels, folk literature and classic works, as well as modern and contemporary literature and prose. Representative titles include foreign literary translations such as Anna Karenina, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, In Praise of Shadows and The Complete Tragedies and Comedies of Shakespeare, alongside classic works by Lao She and Lu Xun such as Camel Xiangzi, Teahouse and Wandering. Its authors and translators include Leo Tolstoy, Cao Ying, Lao She, Yukio Mishima, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Zhu Shenghao. The press emphasizes the translation and introduction of classic texts and the compilation of native literary works, giving equal weight to Chinese and foreign literature. Owing to limited public information, its specific series and editorial policies are not elaborated here.
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